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.