Motoring Discussion > General Question - really remote control Specialists
Thread Author: Hacko Replies: 10
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New Fri 31 Oct 14 17:08 
 General Question - really remote control - Hacko
as it's not April 1, I must share this reader's letter in today's Times. Chap accidentally locked his "smart" keys in back of his car. Spare set was at home, 100 miles away. Farm manager he was visiting advised him to ring his wife and ask her to press the Unlock button of the spare set and hold it close to her mobile, then told the driver to point his mobile to the unobtainable set - in clear view on the rear parcel shelf ... and the car locks unfastened. Seems the farm manager had some knowledge of wireless technologies. Someone please try it and post the result. My gob is smacked, I must know if it works.
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New Fri 31 Oct 14 17:13 
 General Question - really remote control - Zero
Its a load of complete horlicks. Clearly all the farm manager knows about is bull schiesse
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 31 Oct 14 at 17:13
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New Fri 31 Oct 14 17:30 
 General Question - really remote control - WillDeBeest
The story is full of holes (like the one on my BT portal this week extolling hot water with lemon as the new wonder food that will, amongst other marvels, lower your personal acidity.)

Anyway, what tells the spare key which mobile to contact? What tells that mobile which other mobile to call? And what tells the second mobile that it's received an unlocking signal to send to a key? I imagine it could be possible, but it would require configuration that both phone owners would have had to know about.

Do we know what make of car was (supposedly) involved?
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New Fri 31 Oct 14 17:46 
 General Question - really remote control - rtj70
The story seems to suggest it's an audible signal that unlocks the car... Well it isn't is it. And even if it was, the codecs on mobiles would compress the signal and ignore frequencies humans could not hear.

With the only car I've had a drive of with keyless entry and start, the car would sense if you left the key inside and not lock it. If you got out of the car with the engine running and the keys in your pocket it warned you. Not sure if this was keyless style keys though.

So the story is made up. It would not unlock doing this. But I don't think you could lock the keys in either.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 31 Oct 14 at 17:47
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New Fri 31 Oct 14 18:16 
 General Question - really remote control - Old Navy
My ix35 had keyless entry and start. As rtj says the car gets noisily upset if you take the key out of the car with the engine running and will not lock the car with the key inside it. One "feature" which catches some people out is the boot door unlocks if the key is within a couple of metres of the door so it is always unlocked if you have the key in your pocket when you try to open it. This causes some people (me) to think they have a faulty lock and the rear door does not lock. Until you RTFM!
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New Fri 31 Oct 14 18:29 
 General Question - really remote control - rtj70
Referring to the current Mazda6....

It only lets you open the door/boot you're next to as well. Stand at the boot and it will let you open it with the request switch and anyone standing at another door cannot open it. But if you were to unlock the driver door it would unlock the car (not sure about the boot!).

Select the option to auto lock the car when you walked away, it would lock the car when the key moved a certain distance away from one of the key fob sensors. Worked except it did not deadlock the car - and oversight in my opinion.

So for me it offered few advantages. If I was on my own then yes the car could be unlocked by pressing the cheap rubber request button on the driver door handle before entering the car. Then press the button to start it. If I was with my wife and say had something to put in the boot... well I could open the boot but she couldn't get in unless I either unlocked the car from the driver door or used the remote. And to deadlock the car you'd have to use the key fob anyway.

Don't get me started on the scare info about pacemakers in the manual. I'm sure they are not a risk but Mazda were useless.

Could have had keyless entry/start on the A3... no thanks.
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New Fri 31 Oct 14 18:40 
 General Question - really remote control - Old Navy
I am back to a convential key with the Yaris, just lock and unlock buttons and a mechanical lock on the steering column, bliss, no more whinging wife who is being rained on because I have no reason to have the key in my hand and have not unlocked the car from a distance.
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New Fri 31 Oct 14 20:12 
 General Question - really remote control - MD
A customer of mine in the Key 'Game' also says Horlicks.
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New Fri 31 Oct 14 20:26 
 General Question - really remote control - Slidingpillar
The Times is a corporate idiot. Put "key fob mobile phone" into Snopes and among other things, one gets:
Cars with remote keyless entry (RKE) systems cannot be unlocked by relaying a key fob transmitter signal via a cellular telephone. RKE systems and cell phones utilize different types of signals and transmit them at different frequencies.

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New Fri 31 Oct 14 21:56 
 General Question - really remote control - rtj70
>> RKE systems and cell phones utilize different types of signals and transmit them at different frequencies.

Isn't that bit irrelevant? The signal for remote lock/unlock is not an audible frequency (otherwise we'd all hear it!) and couldn't be transmitted by a phone. And to keep bandwidth requirements down, a mobile phone (GSM, 3G) will compress audio and throw away frequencies we couldn't hear. I don't include LTE/4G because at the moment we don't have VoLTE in the UK at the minute but the same would apply.
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New Fri 31 Oct 14 22:12 
 General Question - really remote control - Slidingpillar
I could boor you silly on this, but I thought it easier to quote Snopes as anyone in the publishing world should run an odd sounding tale past them first.

Phones, roughly 500-2500 Hz audio. Key fob, 430 MHz radio so rather different.
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