Stellantis Is Spamming Owners' Screens with Pop-Up Ads for New Car Discounts

Re:Stellantis Is Spamming Owners' Screens with Pop-Up Ads fo... by apparent on Friday November 28, 2025 @03:30PM (#46082495)

Are you looking to remote start from the fob, or from an app? I agree that if it's done via the fob, that shouldn't require a subscription. But I understand that something requiring a cell signal will usually be paid, one way or another. I prefer it not be baked into the cost of the car, since some people (me) will not want that feature.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Stellantis Is Spamming Owners' Screens with Pop-Up Ads fo... by treyd on Friday November 28, 2025 @04:20PM (#46082860)

Even if it was from an app, why can't I use wifi/bluetooth? Even if it depends on a relay server, why can't I load my own sim and run my own relay?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Stellantis Is Spamming Owners' Screens with Pop-Up Ads fo... by apparent on Friday November 28, 2025 @05:03PM (#46083177)

This seems like a very HN-specific use case. It's not surprising that automakers don't have APIs that let customers host servers that they use to remotely start their vehicles. Security is obviously a huge issue, and almost no one cares about remote starting that much, and has the know-how to implement relay servers and such.

I'm not happy with how consumer choice is boxed in by automakers, but for sensitive systems like ignition, I don't think that their approach is unreasonable.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Stellantis Is Spamming Owners' Screens with Pop-Up Ads fo... by dietr1ch on Saturday November 29, 2025 @04:49PM (#46091101)

What do you mean HN-specific? I don't understand how cars got to require permanent cellular connections in the first place while Bluetooth would've been enough

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Stellantis Is Spamming Owners' Screens with Pop-Up Ads fo... by apparent on Sunday November 30, 2025 @04:33PM (#46100655)

I was referring to the fact that a very small sliver of the population would be interested in running their own relay server, or even figuring out what that means. They just want to press a button and have the car turn on.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Stellantis Is Spamming Owners' Screens with Pop-Up Ads fo... by willio58 on Friday November 28, 2025 @07:20PM (#46084083)

Key fob-based has worked great for me in a variety of living configurations (apartments, single homes) in the past 7 years with my 2017 civic. It can connect surprisingly far distances, and it doesn’t need a direct line of site or anything. Just good old RF.

I get what you’re saying about app-based. My civic has that too and it’s for a cost. I’ve just never needed it since we have the free for life RF version.

At $110/yr for cell-based remote start via Honda link, I’ve saved $770 over the years. Over the life of the car for me I could be looking at doubling those savings. That’s the power of avoiding needless subscriptions.

[ Parent | on HN ]