Rivian owners with an Apple Watch are about to get a lot more functionality on their wrists. According to a report by RivianTrackr, the EV maker is rolling out a standalone Apple Watch app that’ll let you control your vehicle remotely without pulling out your phone.
The new app will reportedly give you the ability to lock and unlock doors, open and close windows, and trigger the alarm, all from your wrist. It’s a natural progression for Rivian, which already enabled the Apple Watch as a digital key for its Gen 2 vehicles back in December. But until now, that watch functionality was pretty limited compared to what you could do with the iPhone app.
From Digital Key to Full Control
Right now, Apple Watch access to Rivian vehicles works through Apple’s digital wallet integration. You can use it to unlock your 2025 R1S or R1T, but that’s about where the party ends. A standalone app would finally bring feature parity between the iPhone and Apple Watch, letting you control all those cabin functions without needing to dig your phone out of your pocket.
The upcoming software update will supposedly bring the digital key functionality to Gen 1 Rivian vehicles too. That means owners of 2021 through 2024 models will finally get to use their Apple Watch as a key, which feels long overdue for early adopters who paid premium prices.
The standalone app is expected to arrive with Rivian’s 2026.03 software update, bundled alongside version 3.9 of the iPhone app. Rivian didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment, so we’re still waiting on official confirmation of these features.
The CarPlay Elephant in the Room
Here’s the thing that keeps bugging me about Rivian’s approach to Apple integration. They’re spending all this Technology development effort on Apple Watch apps and digital keys, but they still won’t support Apple CarPlay. Neither will Tesla, for that matter, though rumors suggest Tesla might finally cave on that front.
It’s a weird stance to take in 2026. Most car buyers expect CarPlay at this point, especially when they’re dropping serious money on a premium electric vehicle. Both Rivian and Tesla argue that their native infotainment systems are superior, but that’s a decision that should belong to the customer, not the manufacturer.
The business reasoning is pretty transparent. Keep people locked into your ecosystem, control the entire user experience, and maybe eventually monetize that captive audience. But it’s also a potential deal breaker for buyers who’ve built their digital lives around Apple’s ecosystem.
I get that building out Apple Watch support shows Rivian is at least trying to play nice with Apple devices. And honestly, having comprehensive watch controls for your vehicle is genuinely useful. But it feels like they’re cherry picking the integrations that don’t threaten their control over the main infotainment screen.
The contrast is pretty stark when you look at traditional automakers who’ve embraced CarPlay universally while also developing their own systems. They let customers choose, and somehow their tech stacks haven’t collapsed because of it.
As Rivian continues building out its Apple Watch capabilities, you have to wonder whether they’ll ever reconsider their CarPlay stance, or if stubbornness will continue to trump customer preference.
