Can you unlock a car using a mobile phone?

Steve

Is there any truth to this or is it horse poo?

Have you locked your keys in the car?
If your car has remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone:
If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their mobile phone from your cell phone.
Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock.. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be thousands of miles away,

Editor's Note: I didn’t believe this when I heard about it! I rang my daughter in Sydney from Perth when we went on holiday. She had the spare car key. We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a mobile phone!'

Anyone ever tried it?

Atlantic Dawn

It's an old wives tale.

biko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC_YdJeXouE

CoBo55

Horse****e..

Phileas Frog

The scenario is horse shíte, but yes you can unlock your car with your phone.

OU812

I've done it with a rental in the US (was a Ford). You input the code of the key into the app, it verifies & allows you to open the car (I guess using bluetooth), could start it too & control the A/C, Windows, audio & heating

biko

OU812 wrote: »

I've done it with a rental in the US (was a Ford). You input the code of the key into the app, it verifies & allows you to open the car (I guess using bluetooth), could start it too & control the A/C, Windows, audio & heating

Phileas Frog wrote: »

The scenario is horse shíte, but yes you can unlock your car with your phone.

This is different from what OP was asking.
It's an intended feature which you must activate.

Phileas Frog

biko wrote: »

This is different from what OP was asking.
It's an intended feature which you must activate.

I am aware. Thanks.

It was in response to the thread title.

Steve

Yeah I reckoned it was dodgy alright. Would be cool if it worked though.

CoBo55

Phileas Frog wrote: »

I am aware. Thanks.

It was in response to the thread title.

Try reading the actual post not just the title...

Has certainly never worked for me.

highdef

biko wrote: »

This is different from what OP was asking.
It's an intended feature which you must activate.

OP asked in the thread title: Can you unlock a car using a mobile phone?

No need to read any further.

Del2005

highdef wrote: »

OP asked in the thread title: Can you unlock a car using a mobile phone?

No need to read any further.

If you throw the phone hard enough you could break the glass and then open the door, anolog is better than digital.

Phileas Frog

CoBo55 wrote: »

Try reading the actual post not just the title...

I did, read the first line of my post. :rolleyes:

Wanderer78

Surely someone has hacked these systems

jay48

We tried this in work back in the day with an 088 phone and it worked.

Glebee

jay48 wrote: »

We tried this in work back in the day with an 088 phone and it worked.

I tried this before a long time ago and it worked.. I tried it again recently and it did not work

biko

What car, year and phone did it apparently work with?
The myth busters use an old flip phone, maybe it's different with the new smartphones.

antodeco

I can confirm it doesn't work over bebo.

Glebee

From what i can remember i got it to work on a 2004 Golf using a nokia phone. Cant remember the year i tried it, Its along time ago but i remember at the time being so amazed that it worked.

Glebee

Glebee wrote: »

From what i can remember i got it to work on a 2004 Golf using a nokia phone. Cant remember the year i tried it, Its along time ago but i remember at the time being so amazed that it worked.

Ive tried it at a different timeas i locked my keys in the same golf but could not get it to work.

Snotty

The logic behind this is possible, a cars remote key is radio waves and a phone transmitts radio waves, but the actual machanics of it are harder to understand how it will actually work. Aside from frequency, the phone doesn't pick up the radio wave and transmit it, it gets electronic signals and coverts them to radio waves, so I'm just not sure how this can work.

zilog_jones

Snotty wrote: »

Aside from frequency, the phone doesn't pick up the radio wave and transmit it, it gets electronic signals and coverts them to radio waves, so I'm just not sure how this can work.

Your phone receives audio from a microphone, converts that to digital data and transmits that over the cellular network via radio (using licensed frequencies allocated only to mobile phones). So unless your car remote is transmitting audio - and at that, audio within the frequency range of voice which is all GSM voice codecs are designed for (around 200–3,400 Hz), which it is certainly not because you can't hear it - it's a load of bollocks.

If your car doors were opened by audible noises akin to DTMF dial tones, then sure it would work. But they don't.

Car remotes transmit radio signals at around 434 MHz (for Europe) - there is no way a mobile phone can interact with such a transmission.

Glebee

zilog_jones wrote: »

Your phone receives audio from a microphone, converts that to digital data and transmits that over the cellular network via radio (using licensed frequencies allocated only to mobile phones). So unless your car remote is transmitting audio - and at that, audio within the frequency range of voice which is all GSM voice codecs are designed for (around 200–3,400 Hz), which it is certainly not because you can't hear it - it's a load of bollocks.

If your car doors were opened by audible noises akin to DTMF dial tones, then sure it would work. But they don't.

Car remotes transmit radio signals at around 434 MHz (for Europe) - there is no way a mobile phone can interact with such a transmission.

Worked for me.

zilog_jones

Well you have no proof and could not reproduce it, so I suspect it had nothing to do with your phone and was entirely coincidental. What is far more likely is the car decided to unlock itself due to dodgy wiring in the doors - not an unknown issue with Golfs (along with windows opening while unattended).

redcup342

The mobile phone thing doesn't seem to work but the holding the fob against your head certainly seems to give better range

CVB

Yes you can !!!

I can unlock and lock my car wherever I’m am from my mobile phone
I have a Mercedies and in Mercedes Me App on my phone I can lock/unlock my car remotely from my iPhone :-) App sends signal to door locks.

Called Mercedes Me Connect Remote Online
Door Lock/Unlock :-)

CVB

grogi

redcup342 wrote: »

The mobile phone thing doesn't seem to work but the holding the fob against your head certainly seems to give better range

Simply because you hold it higher!

CoBo55

CVB wrote: »

Yes you can !!!

I can unlock and lock my car wherever I’m am from my mobile phone
I have a Mercedies and in Mercedes Me App on my phone I can lock/unlock my car remotely from my iPhone :-) App sends signal to door locks.

Called Mercedes Me Connect Remote Online
Door Lock/Unlock :-)

CVB

Have it on the superb too. Skoda connect.