the cell phone, the car key of tomorrow

Are the remote control and ignition key outdated? The JUMPWG group is moving forward on a standard bringing together all the players in the automotive, telecoms and mobile sectors in order to open the doors of your car or turn on the ignition from your phone.

After the crank, the ignition key and the remote control, it is the telephone that could soon open and start our cars. Oddly, the good old physical key could become a paid option that will have to be claimed. Otherwise, everything will be done with your phone, whether to open the doors or to switch on the ignition.

It will work exactly like today: either by placing your phone near the gear lever to start, or remotely by keeping it in your pocket or bag. This will be possible thanks to a standard defined by the Joint ultra-wideband mac phy working group (JUMPWG) which brings together all the automotive, telecoms and mobile giants. Their objective is to bring all these beautiful people around the table to rely on a single standard, valid for everyone. Because today Tesla, Apple, Ford, Samsung and so on are all doing things. But each in their own corner.

More secure than a contactless key

Unfortunately, if you lose or have your phone stolen, it will be like today when your car keys are stolen. With one nuance: we can reprogram the key very quickly in another phone (a bit like we can do with bank cards).

Moreover, if we chose the telephone, it is because it is more difficult to hack than a key. It’s a real computer, it has a code, facial recognition or fingerprints. Now you may have heard about car hacking competitions on TikTok and all the devices capable of intercepting contactless key signals. This is less likely to happen with phones.

Works even when discharged

If the phone runs out of battery, it will still work but not remotely. You will have to place your phone on the door to open and on the dashboard to start. In fact, we will switch from wireless to NFC technology (the contactless mode of bank cards). So, we won’t need electricity.

There are many other benefits to going paperless with car keys. We can think of rental companies or car-sharing services which will be able to more easily grant temporary keys or add restrictions on the speed or the perimeter in which the car can travel. However, a problem is raised, that of our increased dependence on our phones.