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BMW Announces Latest Vehicles That Can Be Unlocked With Your iPhone in Your Pocket

RalfTheDog said:
Why would I want my car to unlock every time I walk by the door, even if it relocks itself 30 seconds later? I am actually quite familiar with NFC RFID. It's fantastic for the applications where it is the best choice. Unlocking your car every 45 seconds while you are moving stuff around in your garage or building stuff with the 3d printer or whatever is not a good use. When I want my car door locked, I will push the button on the key. When I want my car door unlocked, I will push the button on the key. When I want to start my car, I will step on the clutch and hit the button. If I want to drift a corner at 100MPH, I will downshift when I want to downshift. I will let off the clutch as I want to let off the clutch. I will upshift and floor it when I want to upshift and floor it.
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You can turn off the "passive entry" feature and just use the NFC feature if you really don't want to use it. You can then always just pull out your phone every time and press the unlock button like you would a key fob. You also can still use the key fob as this car still comes with two of them, though you would need to disable passive entry on the fobs as well.
 
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Cars with this don’t automatically unlock, you’d still put your hand on the door handle to unlock similar to how wireless keyfobs work now. The advantage of this though with UWB is that the repeaters used by criminals to extend the signal shouldn’t work. This hence should be the most secure solution available currently.

Doesn’t mean criminals won’t find a way but at least for a while they’ll likely skip your car and try one that’s easier to steal.

And as someone else said, Tesla doesn’t have this currently and it’s why they added in a pin code to drive because extending the signal does work for them.
 
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usagora said:
But if you lost your key or locked it inside your car, I'd bet you'd want this as a backup.
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Accidentally leaving my keys in the car won’t lock the car, it will beep me and let me know I left my keys in. walking away from my car it locks automatically but I have to have the keys on me. I got a smart key I guess.
 
RalfTheDog said:
This is a good thing why? You walk by your car and it is unlocked. You have your car in your garage that is open because, you are doing stuff. Your phone unlocks your car while you take a 10 minute break in the kitchen, then someone comes and nabs the stuff in the passenger seat. I hope that at a minimum, it can be turned off.

I know it relocks the door after just a few seconds. I don't like the idea of technology deciding what I want to do and when I want to do it.
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The car doesn't unlock unless you pull the door handle. This is how keyless entry works, they don't just unlock when you're at the door, you pull the handle to unlock it.

SolidAdamantium said:
I like the idea, but as you’re walking to your car in a dark parking lot, doesn’t it make car jacking easier?

That said, looking forward to an aftermarket version to become available so this feature can be available on some of my older cars.
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No, these cars do not just unlock automatically. They unlock when you pull the door handle with your keyfob on you, or instead of a keyfob a phone or watch with UWB.

Aftermarket is unlikely. Apple can restrict it to only car makers, and they previously restricted it to BMW until they added Genesis/Hyundai/Kia recently.

mannyvel said:
And apparently the NFC works even if your phone is dead,
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NFC works for a few hours after your phone dies, but it doesn't work after that until you charge your device.
4jasontv said:
How is this better than a sensor in the handle?
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This is also a sensor in the handle. This adds in the ability to keep your phone in your pocket. In addition, the NFC version made you tap your phone to an NFC reader to start the car, this eliminates the need to do the additional tap.
 
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jaytv111 said:
This is also a sensor in the handle. This adds in the ability to keep your phone in your pocket. In addition, the NFC version made you tap your phone to an NFC reader to start the car, this eliminates the need to do the additional tap.
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Oh, I read it as it unlocked without the user requesting the unlock. This would be subjectively bad as it would limit which doors unlock as you approach.
 
usagora said:
I mean, yes, obviously things like this would never happen if everyone were perfect, but when a mistake does happen, it's nice to have a backup option.
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The point is, if you only lock the car by hitting the button on the key or the fob, you can't lock the key in the car. The only way to lock the car is by pressing the button.
FastLaneJB said:
Cars with this don’t automatically unlock, you’d still put your hand on the door handle to unlock similar to how wireless keyfobs work now. The advantage of this though with UWB is that the repeaters used by criminals to extend the signal shouldn’t work. This hence should be the most secure solution available currently.

Doesn’t mean criminals won’t find a way but at least for a while they’ll likely skip your car and try one that’s easier to steal.

And as someone else said, Tesla doesn’t have this currently and it’s why they added in a pin code to drive because extending the signal does work for them.
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It all comes down to challenge/response codes and two way communications. You press the button on the fob that says, "Unlock the car." The car sends back a message, "What is the unlock code for 3F7A?" The fob looks up that code on a table or uses a hash to calculate the correct response then sends, "FFA3." Because the car will never use that challenge again, it is worthless to record the conversation. In a perfect system, the car will download a new table or crypto key to the fob every so often as you drive.

Edited to say, every time I see the word fob, I think it is a hex value and am confused for a tiny fraction of a second.
 
Looking at UWB-based CarKey, I can't help but wish Apple would utilize HomePod mini's UWB to make HomeKit smarter.

If I have multiple HomePod minis and using either Apple Watch (with UWB) or iPhone (with UWB), HomeKit should triangulate and prioritize access to nearby devices.
 
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RalfTheDog said:
This is a good thing why? You walk by your car and it is unlocked. You have your car in your garage that is open because, you are doing stuff. Your phone unlocks your car while you take a 10 minute break in the kitchen, then someone comes and nabs the stuff in the passenger seat. I hope that at a minimum, it can be turned off.

I know it relocks the door after just a few seconds. I don't like the idea of technology deciding what I want to do and when I want to do it.
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Thats not how it works.

You grab the handle and it unlocks.....
 
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Thebrochure said:
Couldn't someone just make a couple backups of their actual key and keep them in safe places?
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And if I'm far away from those "safe places"? Sure would be nice to just unlock using the phone vs. trying to find a ride. You could use a magnetic key box on your car, but that's not very secure.

Look, to each their own. I'm just saying there's no downside to having multiple backup options - it's not a useless feature or anything.
 
Thebrochure said:
Couldn't someone just make a couple backups of their actual key and keep them in safe places?
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Sure, but that's not gonna do you much good if you're in a parking lot somewhere and the key is at your friend's house miles away. The idea here is that you could if you wanted just keep using the car key fob you have, but if that got lost somehow and you still had your phone, you could use that.

Kind of like how you might carry credit cards in your wallet but also have some/all of them set up with Apple Pay on your phone.
 
I am using the current digital key with my 2021 540i, it is a nice feature and great not having to carry a fob; locks and unlocks only when I want it to
 
FastLaneJB said:
Cars with this don’t automatically unlock, you’d still put your hand on the door handle to unlock similar to how wireless keyfobs work now. The advantage of this though with UWB is that the repeaters used by criminals to extend the signal shouldn’t work. This hence should be the most secure solution available currently.

Doesn’t mean criminals won’t find a way but at least for a while they’ll likely skip your car and try one that’s easier to steal.

And as someone else said, Tesla doesn’t have this currently and it’s why they added in a pin code to drive because extending the signal does work for them.
Click to expand...
PIN Code to drive sounds great and all, until you realize that you have left your MacBook in the car, and the thief was actually after that....

Tesla needs a solution that it won't open if the phone is in the house and the car is in the driveway.
 
nutmac said:
Looking at UWB-based CarKey, I can't help but wish Apple would utilize HomePod mini's UWB to make HomeKit smarter.

If I have multiple HomePod minis and using either Apple Watch (with UWB) or iPhone (with UWB), HomeKit should triangulate and prioritize access to nearby devices.
Click to expand...
They actually use UWB in Airdrop, if it detects a UWB-equipped phone nearby it will prioritize that one on the list of Airdroppable devices.

I imagine that's where they're going in Homekit, it could essentially set up rooms automatically and show devices in your room first. But I don't think they've opened up UWB yet to non-Apple devices, besides cars.
 
jaytv111 said:
They actually use UWB in Airdrop, if it detects a UWB-equipped phone nearby it will prioritize that one on the list of Airdroppable devices.

I imagine that's where they're going in Homekit, it could essentially set up rooms automatically and show devices in your room first. But I don't think they've opened up UWB yet to non-Apple devices, besides cars.
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Supposedly HomeKit devices were supposed to use UWB as an option for a lot of things as well, it is just we haven't seen any implementations of it besides cars.
 
jav6454 said:
I hope it's better. Although I can see this working with the BT chip.
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They use Bluetooth for communicating between phone and car. The BMW video says Bluetooth has to be on on your phone to work. The UWB is for getting accurate location between phone and car, in a non-relayable way, the problem with Bluetooth has been the relaying issue. Oddly so many car makers are still sticking with Bluetooth alone, and they have techniques to prevent relaying from working, but regardless it still has accuracy issues, Bluetooth can only estimate how close you are approximately but UWB gets a fix pretty reliably.
 
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