All remote unlock is doing is adding an unnecessary insecure remote layer on top of that for convenience.
Also, there was something sticky with the door lock. If I used the key instead of the fob, sometimes the anti-theft system would not disarm and the only way I found to disarm it was to use the fob to turn that alarm off. Grrrr. Fobs lasted about 3 years and cost $100 to replace/reprogram.
My current car (a Miata) has a key only to unlock the door in the event of a dead battery. It has a pushbutton instead of the traditional ignition key, so the key is pretty useless outside of a dead battery.
They hook a lot of people now with the first couple years free, then spin around and go for a $150+ a year whammy. We gave up.
Not just necessary, but very necessary? I understand it's convenient, but I think you've overstated it a bit. You can always start your car and then go back in the house for a few.
Factory remote start is designed to be operated while unattended, and prevents people from stealing the car, prevents it from running too long, etc.
I live in a cold climate. Remote start isn't even necessary much less very necessary. I start the car, then clean off all the snow and leave. Running the engine isn't going to remove a foot of snow off the windshield and it definitely won't off the roof or hood.
Regardless remote starters do not need the web or a phone, they existed in the 1990s.
you can argue that the security tradeoff is not worth it, but claiming the demand is not there is just silly
> So you can be just a little bit more lazy
Which:
> i can either go back inside to get the keys, or just open the car from the app
I think qualifies, personally. Your house might be way bigger than mine though
Should we get rid of washing machines, dryers, Cuisinarts, in-sink disposals, etc too? They've even killed and injured people all so people could do slightly less work.
Humans love convenience, our entire modern life is oriented around technology created to serve those motivations. An extra way to unlock something with a single point of failure is clearly going to appeal to that same instinct.
That's the thing, the lazyness actually doesn't improve the daily life because all those steps saved end up having to be done in a gym.
I’m not saying physical keys are not needed, but a nice digital solution is one of the things I really wish I had a Tesla. I wish the other car manufacturers would actually invest in good mobile experiences, they’re all such ass.
Seems like a real problem with actually addressing
However there are some edge cases where these systems do not always lock when walking away, if you're opening other doors, the trunk, etc.
Not a good assumption from what I've experienced. It seems quite the opposite to me. Even limiting it to the past decade of model year most cars I've driven do not do this, only a few do.
good question. I don't know? There are three things I carry with me literally everywhere: phone, keys, and wallet. Any one of them missing in the morning means I have to hunt around the house to find them before I can leave for work. This would not change if I could unlock my car with my phone (I still need to be able to lock my front door and/or let myself in when I come home again, requiring keys)
That's not to say they make sense. The total amount I spent on having the locksmith let me back in to my apartment that year was significantly less than the cost of putting in a combination lock.
Unlike say etcd where three improves reliability to the best of the three, three locks would decrease reliability to the worst among them.
Then tying that in to be managed by a computer makes it even more handy. When I have family coming over, they can just use their own PINs to get in instead of having to manage yet another physical key. If its an even more one-off allowance to let someone in, I can easily just unlock from my phone. It also makes it easy to have doors automatically lock on a schedule.
I wouldn't want to have to go back to a world where I have to carry house keys with me every time I leave the house. It sounds way less convenient day to day, for the minor effort of swapping some AA's every six months or so for frequently used doors.
So many of my trips I leave with just my phone. Its my car keys. Its my transit pass. Its my money. Its my map. Normally I wouldn't want to take so much extra junk with me every time I'm just going to grab some groceries or getting lunch with a friend or going to the library.
Modern cars already make it much more difficult to lock your keys in the car than in ye olden days.
And the "did I remember to lock my car" remote-check functionality doesn't seem nearly worth the "now a hacker can remote-unlock my car" tradeoff. It's not like that "did I lock it" check helps prevent a "someone smashed the window and grabbed something out of it" scenario anyway.
It's completely unnecessary.
Modern cars automatically lock themselves when they sense there are no keys nearby, nobody in the seats, and the doors are closed for x minutes.
Neither of my modern cars have that behavior.
There are plenty of 2026 and if not already soon to be model year 2027 cars which do not have this feature available at any trim level.
That some cars have it does not mean "modern cars" as a whole category have them.
Are there cars that let you drive them without the key?
My car allows me to unlock it with a phone from the other side of the planet. But to actually drive, it requires the key to be inside.
But the previous comment seemed to be about driving a car with no key.
Misplacing the phone actually. Car keys are either in someone's pocket/bag (then you talk to whoever used the car last) or in a set place in my home. The phone might be wherever I used it last.
So, while I misplace my phone more often, I also find it with less difficulty.
And so can the police, and so can DHS, and so can ICE, and so can Google ad services, and so can the last 50 highest bidders, and so can ...
Hmm? As in which room? What if it accidentally slid under the bed sheets, or someone put a piece of clothing over it? True stories.
Doesn't work with anything else.
I do own a car. Keys in home are always in exact same spot. Phone can we literally anywhere, good I have smartwatch and I can trigger "locate my phone" that way.
I just don't get the idea of unlocking car though app via internet. Neither I get the "keyless entry" (meaning I do not even need to touch the key fob to unlock car) and "start button" (well if you place key in ignition switch then you will not lose it!)
The security drawback is not worth, fixing non-existing problem in the first place.
…And what about the many other things one misplaces about the house? For instance, Wireless mice, TV and various other remote controls, etc.
I just cannot understand why the tech crowd hasn't developed a much-needed Missing Objects protocol.
Think of this. When you lose an object you immediately go to a big button that's hidden and securely bolted down (so you can never lose it) then press it. Like your fob key and car, it activates all these easily-lost items and they start beeping madly so you can find them. Lose the mouse in the couch somewhere and and the 'couch' starts beeping. Voilà, one found mouse.
It's crazy that a simple concept like this doesn't exist in practice.
Meanwhile, if I'm out in public and a bad update bricks my phone (or cell coverage is down?) I can no longer use my car. The idea that consumers would hope for more entrenchment into the phone ecosystem is absolutely baffling.
Or at least as a car owner, this is my risk assessment exercise output.
[1] Yeah, I just pulled this off my ass, don't think there are trustworthy stats either in one direction or the other.
My 2012 Chrysler certainly does.
Unfortunately Hyundai decided, in their wisdom, to put the door lock button (to lock all doors) in the console between the front seats. Exactly where Sally stepped when she came from the back.
Both my wife's keys and phone were still in the car.
30 minutes later, a local mechanic showed up. He gently pried the front door open with something like a whoopie cushion, and was able to poke the door lock button and open everything. It took him about 5 minutes.
Hyundai Canada can, of course, open the doors remotely, but when I called them they refused to and only offered to call CAA (the Canadian version of AAA, and the people Hyundia sub-contracts their roadside assistance to). I guess that makes sense considering the liability of remotely unlocking for someone whose identity they can't verify.
That said, the digital key is much more finicky/failure prone than my Tesla's implementation, and has a backup keycard I keep in my wallet (but have never had to use). Generally, rebooting the phone fixes it for some amount of time, until it stops working again with no indication until I try to unlock her car.
I'm not convinced it is even lazy to use a phone to unlock a car.
Mazda charges $10-15/month for their remote unlock/start app.
Remote start is huge where I live. When it's -10C and there's a foot of snow you have to dig out in the morning, you can start your car from the app and then start shovelling. The alternative is a hokey pokey of shovelling yourself a path to the car, getting in, starting it, getting out, resuming shovelling. Not the end of the world but it's very nice. Even if there's no snow it's nice to get the cabin above freezing while you're eating breakfast.
as for "I often forget to lock the doors"... why do you often forget to lock the doors?
Luckily the other car will at least notify me if I leave it unlocked and can lock it through my phone. Would be nice if it just also auto-locked.
Only if you're like right next to the car. I prefer to remote start my car when I'm more than a few minute walk away from it so it actually has a chance to warm up or cool down. Starting it ten seconds before I get to the car is practically worthless.
i'm in legit cold canada and being able to open my garage remotely and start my car means it's a lot easier to herd small kids into a warm, comfy carseat.
It's effective law enforcement that removes such people from society, and renders your neighborhood safe.
You can never have 100% perfect physical safety.
And reaching near-perfect physical safety requires that the state becomes extremely authoritarian.
You instead want good physical safety and effective law enforcement, and then you add on other mitigations for when those fail. "Defense in depth" - locks for your doors, anti-theft features for your car, firearms for your home.
And even the deterrence of a locked door helps cut down on some crime. People are less willing to rob a car if it means (or even they just think it means) getting cut and bleeding, or getting caught on video.
Let's say you're not at home, well, (1) neither is your car and/or (2) it's still unlocked for however long it took you to remember.
Most new cars automatically lock the doors when you walk away from them anyway.
I'm just not seeing the benefit here.
I really like using my phone as my key for my car. It's nice having less stuff in my pockets.
Clearly, not a critical use case but it is handy.
Remote locking and remote start are much more useful.