keyless remote through a cell phone?

Did the doors unlock?

  • Of course they did!

    Votes: 5 21.7%

  • No way that works!

    Votes: 18 78.3%
  • Total voters
    23
  • Poll closed .
bigwaylon

bigwaylon

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2005
Location
Charlotte
This is one of those things you read on the internet, and whether you believe it or not, you have to try it...


My mom was told by somebody, that if she ever locked her keys in her car ('99 Toyota Avalon) that she could call her next door neighbor, have them go into her house and get her spare remote, then hold it up to the phone and push the button. If my mom was standing close enough to her car, the door would unlock.

I will say we had to test it last night, just to know...

What do you think...did the doors unlock?

Greg
 
I am going to vote no without having any scientific facts to back me up. This should be a good test of common sense for me.
 
ummm, that is :gay:

unless the car is broke it did not work. They are using two different frequencies.

one is a low for the remote
the other is just a GSM, TDMA, CDMA or another network that has nothing to do with the short frequency the remote puts out.

NOW, you coudl probably make this work with a few mods to the remote and phone.
 
Plausable :) It could work if the phone was able to 'hear' the RF frequency range in use and then able to reproduce it on the other side.. My guess is probbaly not.

To clearify, the phone does use some specifc (high) frequency to operate. But it takes your much lower audio frequency conversation, converts it to a digital signal and sends it over the phones frquency to the other end where it is reproduced in the lower audio frequency, for the other person to hear..
 
Car fobs work on RF, which is light. Telephones use the mic to pick up sound, which is vibration in the air. Not the same thing.

You could build a telephone interface that would do it, tho.
 
I heard the same thing on another board last year about this. Seems that it worked as I remember?
How does OnStar work when they unlock the doors?
 
Did a "little" research. As we all stated, it can not happen now with a single type of phone and remote from a normal low dollar car. But if your wireless remote uses blue tooth, and your phone has it and you have onstar and the stars are alined and you are on a flat surface and you are only a few blocks away and you are rich and tall and a few other thing it is possibly, possiable. :flipoff2:
 
door3 said:
I heard the same thing on another board last year about this. Seems that it worked as I remember?
How does OnStar work when they unlock the doors?
Click to expand...


it actually did work...completely against all logic...using my cell phone, my mom's, and her OEM key fob from Toyota...

my wife asked the same thing about OnStar...and since it's a "phone", that may actually be the method?

somebody else is gonna try it now...just to see...

Greg
 
I argued against this and bet $100 to 2 of my former employees a year ago.

My car (01 yukon) was parked on the far side of the lot, would not operate on teh remote after a dozen tries.

Cranked a phone call conversation up walked across the parking lot locked unlocked and caused the emergency siren to go off.

It WORKS.

Someone mentioned IR as the transmission method of car remotes, nah they work in your pocket.

You do have to get the cell phone very close but it works.

At least on my car.
 
bigwaylon said:
it actually did work...completely against all logic...using my cell phone, my mom's, and her OEM key fob from Toyota...
my wife asked the same thing about OnStar...and since it's a "phone", that may actually be the method?
somebody else is gonna try it now...just to see...
Greg
Click to expand...
i work for a yota dealer you know ive got to try this one ill let you know how it goes.
 
see...now I want to get the other remote to my wife's Honda Pilot...and then tell her to call me as she's leaving the office...

...and then just keep pressing the Panic button (cause I can't see when she's close to the car) until I hear the alarm going off...

:D

Greg
 
remote

one more question what kind of car did you try it on and where did you have the phone at the car?
 
NCCJ7 said:
one more question what kind of car did you try it on and where did you have the phone at the car?
Click to expand...


It was the '99 Toyota Avalon I mentioned earlier...

I stood within sight of the vehicle, but far enough away that the transmitter did NOT unlock the doors on the 10-12 times I tried it...

without moving, I called my mom, who was standing next to her car...she held the phone away from her (closer to the car) and I pressed the button one more time, with the fob near my cell...and could see the lights blink and she said the door was unlocked...

she had heard this from a couple people at church, who said they had actually tried it and it worked...but I don't know the circumstances of their attempts...

I thought it was complete hogwash...just like the snopes article said...but I saw it happen...and judging by an earlier post, SkyHiK5 has seen it work, too...

somebody else go try it...from a longer distance (completely out of sight, like one of you at work and the other at home)...and let us know...

Greg
 
bigwaylon said:
I stood within sight of the vehicle, but far enough away that the transmitter did NOT unlock the doors on the 10-12 times I tried it...
without moving, I called my mom, who was standing next to her car...she held the phone away from her (closer to the car) and I pressed the button one more time, with the fob near my cell...and could see the lights blink and she said the door was unlocked...
Click to expand...
What very well may have happened was the key fob "coupled" with the antenna on your cell, giving it more effective range. Coupling can happen with just about any antenna.
You can also increase the effective range of your key fob by holding it to your neck. Not by much, but it does work.
Until someone miles away does this over a phone call, I'm raising the BS flag.
 
had 6 people at work try it at different times. did not work at all. Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Honda, another ford car, and a Lexus. None of them did anything and it was also tried with 2 difference phone carriers. What phone carrier did you use greg?
 
...as for Onstar, I believe they are simply triggering the unlock button in your car...which is hardwired to the phone system...no different than calling someone who is sitting in your car and them hitting the unlock button.

IR would not work, but I don't think many of them are IR that is mostly remote controls on your tv. RF (Radio frequency) is actually mini transmitters, sending specific frequency/numeric code, with a receiver in the car.

In theory...if the speaker in the earpiece could exactly duplicate the frequency (which is out of the human hearing range I assume), then I don't understand why it wouldn't work.

But you are asking alot of a cheap/tiny speaker AND the microphone on the other end of cell phone AND that their is NO frequency shift over the cellular network, etc....

Now what you do need is a transmitter, that is coded to transmit at the frequency approved by FCC for these remotes, to send ALL the possible combinations! (Say it is 8 digits, 0-9, that would be 99,999,999 combinations)...eventually it would open your car door and every other one around you!?

I am not sure how many they could emit in a second, lets say it is really fast and could do 1000 PER second, would take 99,999 seconds / 27.7775 hours to break the code

Sam
 
Rich said:
What very well may have happened was the key fob "coupled" with the antenna on your cell, giving it more effective range. Coupling can happen with just about any antenna.
You can also increase the effective range of your key fob by holding it to your neck. Not by much, but it does work.
Until someone miles away does this over a phone call, I'm raising the BS flag.
Click to expand...


I won't doubt that...

I've tried it with my neck before...seriously...

like I said, I did it within sight of the vehicle, as did the only other person on here that's tried it...

I'd like to try it with the same car/phones/key fob...from a distance...


John...Cingular...

Greg
 
SHINTON said:
Now what you do need is a transmitter, that is coded to transmit at the frequency approved by FCC for these remotes, to send ALL the possible combinations! (Say it is 8 digits, 0-9, that would be 99,999,999 combinations)...eventually it would open your car door and every other one around you!?
I am not sure how many they could emit in a second, lets say it is really fast and could do 1000 PER second, would take 99,999 seconds / 27.7775 hours to break the code
Sam
Click to expand...

See this for security concerns like Sam is talking about:
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/remote-entry.htm
(you have to click past the first few pages to get to the modern system)
 
Alright.... during lunch we conducted this experiment with my nissan. It did not unlock the doors but it set off the alarm. We tried nextel and verizon, both with speakerphone on and off. this is what I found (they called me from 3 floors up and in the middle of the building from an avaya desk phone pointing the fab directly into the mouthpeice)

Holding the cell phone close to the front of the vehicle, same place each time.

Nextel speakerphone on, tried to unlock, alarm went off, was able to remotely turn the alarm off by pressing the unlock

Verizon speakerphone on, tried to unlock, alarm went off, was not able to remotely turn the alarm off

Neither worked with the speakerphone off.

Talking to some of the engineers who came out with me to see the experiment (i work for a cell phone company) they gave their opinions.

1) speakerphones do not have the full frequency range that the alarm system uses. Alarm might have gotten confused and went into panic mode

2) The nextel clearly had the better speaker, louder and more lifelike, maybe thats why we were able to turn the alarm off with it rather than the verizon one.

So could it work? possibly... with a better speakerphone. Did it work for me.... no, we could not unlock the vehicle.
 
We used 2 nextels phones.
No speaker phone.
car was within sight but approximately 500 yards away.
Also we tried (and this makes no sense to me on any level) at the time using the direct connect function and it would not work only on phone.

Again no speaker phone and held phone right at drivers front fender nearest windshield.

I have NO idea WHY it worked, but I will place my hand on a stack of Good Books THAT it worked...

And my wife will also attest to me sleepig on the couch for 2 nights..(1 for each $100):shaking:
 
AndrewH said:
Nextel speakerphone on, tried to unlock, alarm went off, was able to remotely turn the alarm off by pressing the unlock

Verizon speakerphone on, tried to unlock, alarm went off, was not able to remotely turn the alarm off

So could it work? possibly... with a better speakerphone. Did it work for me.... no, we could not unlock the vehicle.
Click to expand...


you say you couldn't unlock the vehicle...yet you could turn on the alarm, and then turn it off with the unlock button?

odd...


let's call MythBusters!!


Greg
 
SHINTON said:
...as for Onstar, I believe they are simply triggering the unlock button in your car...which is hardwired to the phone system...no different than calling someone who is sitting in your car and them hitting the unlock button.
Click to expand...

Onstar works on Cellphone and GPS, 2002 and older are analog/digital, later '02 and newer are strictly digital cell technology.

Onstar is integrated with the vehicle PCM/diagnostic system and the SRS (air bag) system. air bag deployment automatically triggers a call to onstar command center (right next to gods house ) where they also are able to pinpiont thru GPS where you are. (just like your GPS enabled phone is as easily tracable)

Unlock is similar, but it is a direct call to your vehicle (just one of the tidbits of info you need to have when you call them for the unlock)

Your vehicle can be tracked thru Onstar, and if done for law enforcement purposes can be used to shut the vehicle down. (tracking has been used in Raleigh twice that I know of, both vehicles stolen, one tracked and chased into a tree, the other stolen from the dealership, tracked to New Jersey and shut down, recovered) Almost takes an act of congress to get the shutdown order exectuted (lots of legal crap)

Was a pain in the ass to work on, and I am glad I don't have to deal with it anymore !
 
bigwaylon said:
see...now I want to get the other remote to my wife's Honda Pilot...and then tell her to call me as she's leaving the office...
...and then just keep pressing the Panic button (cause I can't see when she's close to the car) until I hear the alarm going off...
:D
Greg
Click to expand...

ROTFLMAO!!!:lol: :lol: :D :D
 
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