Keyless

wuyanxu said:
Actually, why do we need this additional button-press step?
Sit in the car, car detects key is in the car and driver door is closed, the action of pressing brake pedal and moving to D is more than clear enough signal to the car. At the other end, the action of coming to stop, putting the car to P and getting out of the car and walking off with the key is very clear signal to let the car know it's time to shut off and lock itself.
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Polestar 2 detects your bum on the seat. But for me I like to have the ability be able to turn on the ignition without having to start the engine for diagnostics purposes.
 
gman said:
Polestar 2 detects your bum on the seat. But for me I like to have the ability be able to turn on the ignition without having to start the engine for diagnostics purposes.
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Which raises the question. How do you switch on the ignition?
 
nilagin said:
Which raises the question. How do you switch on the ignition?
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I'm guessing it's automatic as soon as your batty hits the seat which I don't like, what if you want to work on the electrics as you are sitting there or simply want to sit in the car without turning it on? I'm sure they'll put in some off switch but you never know, they may follow Volvo and limit their top speeds as well.
 
nilagin said:
Focus RS. It's black instead of the more popular Nitrous Blue, so not so noticeable. Another layer of security in itself. ;)
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Look nice those RS's, but I went right off of Ford when I had my ST. The lacquer was peeling in several places but they kept telling me it was my fault for using the wrong cleaning substances, even though they were all high quality and neural PH. When it got written off (no fault of mine) I went over to Mini and haven't looked back, other than an M135 that was a lot of fun for 6 months, it then became a bit bland.
 
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gman said:
Polestar 2 detects your bum on the seat. But for me I like to have the ability be able to turn on the ignition without having to start the engine for diagnostics purposes.
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The act of opening the door turns on accessories.
Act of pressing brake pedal turns on the "ignition".

The whole point of ignition and manually starting a car is due to running car engine needs to be a decision made by the user, otherwise repeated such operations will drain the 12v battery. High voltage equipped cars (EV and hybrids) can be different, there is no penalty for getting the car ready to drive and no penalty for running in accessory mode.

nilagin said:
When I go to work I have a work bag and gym bag to carry so fumbling in my pocket to press a button would be a pain. If I going directly to the gym, my remote will be in my pocket in my bag so would be even more of a pain to press a button to unlock the car.
As for not needing a start stop button all cars require an ignition switch of some sort without starting the engine, and your idea won't work on manual cars anyway.
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Exactly, hence why I said handbag rather than woman. ;)

Are there any hybrid manual cars? My idea doesn't really work with cars that rely on a tiny 12v battery......
 
Not sure on full on manual hybrids, but Ford's mild hybrids will be available as manual. They just provide assistance however, although the motors are capable of moving a car in stop start traffic, I don't think Ford are planning on using it as such.

I should imagine all ice cars are now stop start and have larger updated batteries. They won't lose all their charge as quick as a standard 12V battery.
 
wuyanxu said:
The act of opening the door turns on accessories.
Act of pressing brake pedal turns on the "ignition".
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The video I watched implied that simply by sitting down it effectively turned on the car probably by means of a switch under or in the seat, so no extra steps requires other than the loud (quiet?) pedal.

But what you say above is not much different from my ICE though, opening the doors turns on all the accessories and instead of pressing the brake pedal I press a button instead to turn on the ignition - or I hold the button instead to actually start the car. Only extra step is that I also have to depress the brake pedal when actually starting the car but my hoof is there anyway.
 
one reason why a car won't automatically switch off it's engine if it can't detect the key ( walking away from the car for example ) is safety
imagine the key failing for whatever reason while your in the outside lane of a motorway doing 70mph and the car switching it's engine off because it can't detect the key

when i put the car in the yard my wife has on more than a few occasions jumped out of the car with the key and disappeared in to the house, the car warns you the key is out of range but still runs and can be restarted if the ignition hasn't been switch off by opening the drivers door or pressing the button

one niggle is if i jump out of the car while the engine is running and attempt to lock the doors i would expect it to stop the engine and lock the doors but it just beeps the horn a few times to warn me the engine is still running
i suppose it's tied in to the safety thing of not detecting the key while the engine is still running
 
nilagin said:
I should imagine all ice cars are now stop start and have larger updated batteries. They won't lose all their charge as quick as a standard 12V battery.
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Why does stop/start equipped car start the engine when you turn on ignition though? Why doesn't it wait until I actually request the car to move?

gman said:
But what you say above is not much different from my ICE though, opening the doors turns on all the accessories and instead of pressing the brake pedal I press a button instead to turn on the ignition - or I hold the button instead to actually start the car. Only extra step is that I also have to depress the brake pedal when actually starting the car but my hoof is there anyway.
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The extra step is button press.

Currently you are required to press brake, press START button, put into D and start driving. OR not press brake, press START button for accessary mode.
Why not this way? You press brake, put into D and start driving. OR action of unlocking the car puts it in accessary mode.

Currently you are required to put the car in park, press the button to shut off the car. Then get out to lock the car.
Why not simply put the car in park, get out and lock the car. Action of external locking shuts off the car.

The button is redundant. Other actions already able to tell the car when to start up/shut off. The button is only kept to allow people to understand vehicle status in relation to having a key. It is no longer needed in the same way door keyholes are no longer visible. It is a symbol of cautious incremental changes adopted in automotive industry.

Another stupidly slow industry is building company adoption of home automation. I was ordering a new front door to replace our badly warped flaking wooden front door. Only option is Yale smart lock, no option for other start-up brands who are offering more features.
/rant
 
wuyanxu said:
Why does stop/start equipped car start the engine when you turn on ignition though? Why doesn't it wait until I actually request the car to move?
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What if you need to work under the bonnet with engine running? Or run diagnostics with engine running?
 
nilagin said:
What if you need to work under the bonnet with engine running? Or run diagnostics with engine running?
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That's going to be less than 5% of use-cases for a car. An infotainment screen override setting will do that job nicely.

Actually, the disable engine stop/start button can already cater for that use-case.
 
wuyanxu said:
The extra step is button press.

Currently you are required to press brake, press START button, put into D and start driving.
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You said ignition, not starting the engine - but I still covered that bit also.
 
nilagin said:
I should imagine all ice cars are now stop start and have larger updated batteries. They won't lose all their charge as quick as a standard 12V battery.
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You can imagine all you like, they’re not.
Car makers have to make ‘lower range’ cars, and what they choose to leave off varies.
All the Fords I’ve driven recently have stop start, but my wife’s car doesn’t (Citroen base model) OTOH she has cruise control and you have to get quite high up the ford spec sheet to get cruise. In fact I was in a Fiesta last week that had a speed limiter but no cruise! Apparently VW also commonly add that bizarre mix of features.
 
Phil V said:
You can imagine all you like, they’re not.
Car makers have to make ‘lower range’ cars, and what they choose to leave off varies.
All the Fords I’ve driven recently have stop start, but my wife’s car doesn’t (Citroen base model) OTOH she has cruise control and you have to get quite high up the ford spec sheet to get cruise. In fact I was in a Fiesta last week that had a speed limiter but no cruise! Apparently VW also commonly add that bizarre mix of features.
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My physio has a VW Up which doesn't even have a remote, she has to put the key in the door to lock/unlock it. Still some very basic cars being made.
 
Question for you wise people.... I put my key(less) in a Faraday bag but I don't fold the top flap over to completely seal it in, is this still reasonably safe?
 
Flashman said:
Question for you wise people.... I put my key(less) in a Faraday bag but I don't fold the top flap over to completely seal it in, is this still reasonably safe?
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As long as you point the opening away from possible area thieve might try to pick up your signal, it should be fine.

I tested this by having the keyless fob in one of those bag, the car could not recognise the fob less I point the opening directly at the car. Meaning the bag effectively removed the omnidirectional property of the key.

So we never bother to close the bag, just pop the keys in there and place it next to our key bowl, pointing away from the front door.
 
Would lining a small box with tin foil a few times work?
 
gman said:
Would lining a small box with tin foil a few times work?
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I've read that it will work (don't blame me if you do it and it doesn't!) but I'd sooner buy a sheet of faraday fabric (less than a tenner on ebay) and line the box with that. I've also read that putting your keys in the fridge will work too.
 
Jelster said:
Every car I have had with stop/start has an override switch so you can turn it off.
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I wasn't referring to switching off the stop/start. I was referring to the suggestion of not having a start button, but getting in the car and the engine automatically starting when you go to move off or stopping when you get out.
 
Flashman said:
I've read that it will work (don't blame me if you do it and it doesn't!) but I'd sooner buy a sheet of faraday fabric (less than a tenner on ebay) and line the box with that. I've also read that putting your keys in the fridge will work too.
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I bought a 1Mx1M sheet of the fabric for about £5.00 off ebay.
 
Flashman said:
I've read that it will work (don't blame me if you do it and it doesn't!) but I'd sooner buy a sheet of faraday fabric (less than a tenner on ebay) and line the box with that. I've also read that putting your keys in the fridge will work too.
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I bought a 1Mx1M sheet of the fabric for about £5.00 off ebay.
 
We've got loads of decorative metal boxes and tins - no need to spend anything.
 
I thought it was a Jeep that had been distantly hacked?
 
Nod said:
I thought it was a Jeep that had been distantly hacked?
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I'd only read of a Nissan, it may have been done on various makes just to see if it possible.
 
I would be more worried about the reported cases of aircraft being hacked.......
 
nilagin said:
Other than being a Nissan, I don't know what exact model it was but the car was in the UK and someone was able to hack into the car from Australia, start the car up and take control of all of It's computerised systems. It wasn't an aftermarket system that had been hacked into in this case though it was the car's own actual computer.
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If you watch the video the car that was remotely hacked in this demonstration is a Range Rover.

As the narration clearly states, this is done by hacking third party apps from the likes of Clifford, Viper and Pandora.
 
Uncle Fester said:
If you watch the video the car that was remotely hacked in this demonstration is a Range Rover.

As the narration clearly states, this is done by hacking third party apps from the likes of Clifford, Viper and Pandora.
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Was on the news today, quite interesting to watch. But.... From what I can make out, the security system in the car hadn't been hacked, it was the users account that got them access to the controls of the vehicle. Still bloody scary though.....
 
Uncle Fester said:
If you watch the video the car that was remotely hacked in this demonstration is a Range Rover.

As the narration clearly states, this is done by hacking third party apps from the likes of Clifford, Viper and Pandora.
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I realise that, I was relating to a previous demonstration of hacking a cars own computer and actually happened a few years ago. So it isn't really anything new other than showing the alarm systems are open to hacking also. Not sure about the alarm systems mentioned but with the Ghost immobilized system which also has the phone app option, if the system isn't set up to use the phone app, the system can't be hacked.
 
A pal has a highly modded Focus RS that has an unusual security device, he has fitted a quick release steering wheel and takes it with him when he leaves the car, really strange if we all meet out for meal, I’m checking in my jacket but he has the wheel to hang up too.
 
Was having a think about all this as my car is also keyless so tried this out, only took a few minutes and is three sheets thick. It works! lol So all I have to do is dump my key in this box, nice and easy (it's upstairs) rather than in and out of a pouch. I even tried pointing the fob at the car so line-of-sight whilst in the box and it still wouldn't work, does the foil scramble the signal or something? As soon as I take the car out it works fine.

Not sure if it will protect from a powerful signal booster but I don't see why not if line-of-sight doesn't work? Got the spare wrapped up in a few layers also. Sure, I could make it look prettier, perhaps it can be a creativity challenge for the children! :D

Costs:
Box: Free (came with a new wallet)
Tin Foil: about 20p worth
Black tape: about 5p worth



Foil Box.jpg
 
I am not sure if it is a case of shielding by line of sight or not. First faraday pouch I had worked fine for about 6 months then became intermittent. The outside vinyl coating cracked and flaked, as the pouch was always kept in my pocket, but the faraday material appeared to be intact. I don't know if removing and replacing the fob in the pouch was wearing or damaging it in anyway, but it certainly didn't appear worn. I have heard of people keeping their gobs in empty crisp packets. I have also seen a video where a van driver had a drinks can with the lid cut off. He had the can sitting on the seat and as soon as he dropped the fob into the can the fob couldn't be detected by his van and refused to start.

But what is also important other than making your car as secure as possible is making sure your home is also secure. Car thieves may just break in and steal the car keys but if they can't find them, some thieves aren't adverse to threatening the owner or their family to get the keys.
 
nilagin said:
But what is also important other than making your car as secure as possible is making sure your home is also secure. Car thieves may just break in and steal the car keys but if they can't find them, some thieves aren't adverse to threatening the owner or their family to get the keys.
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Precisely, my car is pretty targetable so when we had our burglar alarm fitted the engineer recommended we leave our car keys downstairs in an easily spotted place for this very reason.
 
House is rarely empty to be honest, got more locks and bolts than my wife likes and a dog although only a watch dog at best lol But never say never!

Perhaps when I'm a little older I'll move the keys to the front door.
 
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Uncle Fester said:
This may be of interest:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/technology-47485733/security-holes-found-in-smart-car-alarms
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As long as anything has capability to connect to the internet, it can never be secure.

Solution: over-the-air updates that are applied regularly to patch out any newly discovered security holes. Also a bounty scheme that rewards white-hat hackers for reporting bugs. This is software security 101, basic stuff. But as far as I'm aware, only one car manufacturer does this.
https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/about/security?redirect=no
 
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