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Volvo Wants You To Ditch Car Keys For Its New Smartphone App (dailydot.com)

Posted by msmash on from the but-is-it-more-secure? dept.

An anonymous reader quotes an article on DailyDot: Lending your car to a friend could be as easy as sending a text. That's the future Volvo is imaging with its smartphone app that enables keyless entry for the driver -- and anyone with permission to enter. Announced earlier this year and now prominently on display at the New York International Auto Show, the app does away with key fobs and puts the key right on the user's phone. Using the device's Bluetooth capability, the app can do just about everything that a standard key could do -- from unlocking the doors to popping open the trunk to even starting the engine of the vehicle without turning the ignition. Beyond just convenience for the primary holder, the Volvo app also allows others to take the wheel without requiring a physical key. Users are able to grant digital keys to others, allowing them temporary or ongoing access to the car.

4 of 293 comments (clear)

  1. So, like Tesla? by green1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sounds exactly like what Tesla has had for several years now.

  2. Volvo wants app appers to get apped! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Modern app appers know that ONLY apps can app apps, so when app appers app their car using apps, their car will get apped by an app apping app who apps apps!

    Apps!

  3. combination lock by holophrastic · · Score: 3, Informative

    We had keys specifically so that a physical device is required. That's a security feature. Otherwise, a combination lock would let anyone with knowledge of the combination to enter -- which could easily be sent by text message.

    I don't lend my car to random people, on a whim, without them having a key already. Sorry, that's not a thing.

    And, again, I don't need remote access to my car, any more than I needed remote access to my VCR's eject button.

  4. Re:It is inevitable by sjames · · Score: 3, Informative

    It will allow you to open the door so you can get to the hood latch you have to pull so you can open the hood so you can jumpstart the car or replace the battery.

    It might also allow you to get to the phone you locked in the glovebox so you can call for assistance.

    Or if we want the most extreme form, to allow you to get to the insulin in the car so you can live long enough to even care that the battery is dead.

    When you let marketing make engineering decisions, people die.