yes you are right, do not feel comfortable putting everything in my phone, any thing over the internet can be hacked, leaked, companies are always using your data with out your consent
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Toyota to Gain Apple Car Keys Support
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For my money, their tech is a lot less flashy but more reliable.
At least when I test drove a lot of cars a couple years ago, I felt more confident about their lane centering and safety suite of tech than most of their competitors.
Your iPhone is far more secure than your other computing devices or your physical wallet.
No company has access to anything in your iPhone Wallet. Anything else you have to specifically authorize it (opt in). Like contacts or your photo gallery.
Ford Blue Cruise and GM Super Cruise are both far ahead of anything Honda (or Toyota) have.
Not to mention how far behind Honda & Toyota (the darlings of the Japanese auto industry) are on EVs. Toyota was even promoting hydrogen for awhile (the most useless vehicle fuel ever imagined). Only a company in bed with the fossil fuel industry would try to make hydrogen a thing.
It’s too bad seeing how far they’ve fallen in recent years from being the pinnacle of the automotive world.
You don’t have to pull your phone out. This is technology built on UWB and Bluetooth.
The original iteration used NFC which needed you to scan the phone (both to enter a car, and to start it, two scans). But the current iteration is done entirely without contact, and nobody is launching a car these days with purely NFC (NFC can be used as a backup, in case phone battery is too low, it can run the NFC side for a few hours after hitting 0).
The car keys do not use the internet to facilitate every day entering and exiting, and the code for binding a car to a phone is stored locally only and there are no ways to reveal the code (this has been the way iPhone security has working for a long time now, there’s a secure element that contains codes specially created and the codes do not get sent anywhere and it only uses crypto operations to validate the code is present).
In other words, someone over the internet can’t do anything to steal a car key resident on your phone. It requires local access and a passcode to get into the device.
However, online accounts, like for car apps, can be intercepted and then someone can add a key to your car on their phone, those apps will use 2-factor though, so it’s probably most easy to do a SIM transfer to get into an account. I protect my cellular account with SIM transfer protection, but not everyone has enabled this.
So yes, there are problems with security, if you’re doing your due diligence you probably have nothing to worry about, but yes, there are people more vulnerable to some types of attacks, especially social engineering attacks.
Yes, if you set it to express and have Digital Key + it will work that way. if you don't have + you can tap your watch on the door handle without having to authenticate.
They own a lot of brands I wouldn't necessarily assume this. Especially since they deliberately keep Audi as a more premium brand.
I hope this works on the new Prius. I'm planning to get it in the next couple months! This is great news!
I am thinking that they may roll it into there subscription service in some way.
No way I’m choosing a Ford or GM over Toyota or Honda. EVs aren’t feasible for a majority of the US population for a variety of reasons. I’ll do hybrid for as long as possible.
Definitely sad that the Corolla Cross doesn’t have it (yet the Corolla does!? WTF?!)… ;( … I was unaware when I bought the Cross a few months ago of the distinction between their Remote services and the Digital Key, but I’d assumed that Toyota would never support Apple CarKey anyway considering they probably lose services revenue from this.They just started doing digital key in 2024, I think. And not every model. That's what allows you to give a digital key to others and they can drive it without the fob. I know for sure that the new Camry, Prius, and Crown have it, but only for the last couple years.
Check here to see if the model/year you have has a support doc for digital key:
Telematics Portal
toyotaaudioandconnectedservicessupport.com
Can confirm the digital key in Toyota app is unreliable and not good. Hopefully this will be better.
Do you hold your phone up to the car or have to use an app? Like is there NFC somewhere that you tag? I’m curious what the hardware difference is between the Remote Connect with Digital key and the Remote Connect I have that only allows you to start the engine or unlock the door but not drive….
When it works, it’s great. You just walk up to the car like Apple. It locks/unlocks with carrying the phone or in bag. I also have an Apple Watch as well that uses it. Some times the car won’t start and you need to close the app, then open it again. Will work then. It’s just unreliable. Always carry the key fob with you. I put mine in sleep mode so it’s not on all the time. Have a 25 Crown Platinum. I think Toyota started the digital keys with certain 23 models on up.
Except in this case… you can log in from anywhere (even a friends phone or library PC) and safely lock down your phone and/or track it to get it back. 🔐
So there’s no fail safe like hold the phone to the door or start button if the app isn’t working and you don’t have your Fob?
No. Also, if the app goes down. You are toast as well if you don’t carry the fob. Toyota themselves mention to carry the fob with you as well at all times as a backup. Toyota had a big outage earlier this year with the app going down. People that did not have their fob’s with them and only digital keys got stuck. Had I not have the fob with me as well, I would have been in that group myself.
