While a lot of car remotes simply start your car, or lock and unlock it, Delphi’s Wireless Vehicle Access software will allow you to control almost every function on your car - via the iPhone! Congratulations if you have an iPhone! Too bad if you don’t have a car yet…

Unfortunately it’s still in the works - so it’s just a display piece at this years Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. But it’s a peak at what can be done with a smartphone and a link to your car. The way it’s done is by linking the smartphone to the key fob via bluetooth. The key fob is what connects to the car and provides the smartphone with a link to the cars functions. So its not actually a direct link from the smartphone to the car but a kind of “piggyback” via the key fob. The advantage here is that the link from the keyfob to the car is encrypted - spread spectrum frequency hopping technology - so it’s very secure. And you can still access the cars functions from a fair distance away - like deep inside your home, or building.

You can do a lot with the technology and it really boils down to how many functions the key fob link to the car already has. So essentially you can control any function on your car that your key fob allows you to (hooray for those who have cars like that!). You can obviously start and stop the car’s engine, check the temperature in the car and roll down the windows (if you don’t want to use the aircon), check your fuel, battery, pre-select the playlist on your car’s stereo and even go so far as to check if your cars been broken into and some crazy nut is waiting in the back seat for you! You can control and access anything on the car via Delphi’s Wireless Vehicle Access as long as your cars keyfob link allows you to.

Now why hasn’t an iPhone hacker come up with this idea already?……

written by PitBoss