Lets face it. Starting your car from a smartphone is the rage and any respectable remote start provider wants to offer it.
Audiovox now joins the fray with its Car Link app + module, unveiled at the KnowledgeFest show in Dallas. Car Link lets your smartphone communicate with an Audiovox module for $249 that installs in the car. Your smartphone can then control car functions like remote start and/ or security, door lock and unlock, and pop-the-trunk with 2-way confirmation from virtually anywhere and at any distance. The package works with about 90 percent of remote start and security systems from Code Alarm, Prestige and Pursuit.
The app + module can also work with security systems from other suppliers but users will lose features like 2-way confirmation on the phone. The system will be available for iPhone, BlackBerry and Android phones. It will ship by the end of October with one free year of service and $30 a year service fees thereafter.
Under its Prestige line, Audiovox is also now shipping real metal transmitters for security systems.
Additionally, in security, the company is shipping a new slim keyfob (the size of an ultra mini flashlight) that lets you upgrade a factory keyless entry system to remote start and security. And it extends the range of the factory system from the usual 200 feet to 1,500 feet. The AS9233ST has a price of about $199.
Source: CEoutlook
Actually Al,the app idea was introduced over a year ago by DEI, in their Viper line of products as an add-on module and Iphone app. DEI is also a close partner with GM, as they make many of the GM add-on security modules through the GM parts departments. This year, Onstar came out with an Iphone/Android app for the same thing, and now Audiovox has one as well.
As for your idea, we had the capability to do this with cellular phones and add-on modules way back in 1990, back then I remember Alpine was making alarms, and you could add a cellular phone module and call your car and lock/unlock the doors, remote start it, roll windows up/down, and in the event it was stolen, even listen to the thieves driving your car through the cell phone microphone. Then companies like Clifford, Audiovox, and others developed “telematics” ports on their higher-end alarm/remote start systems, where you could add cellular modules and call your car and use touch tones to do the same things. These were available from the late 90’s through today.
These current Iphone/Android modules are exactly that: cell phone modules with ESN’s, and your app “calls” the car module and executes the commands to the remote start/alarm module. That’s why the services cost money, as you are basically making a phone call and using airtime each time you send a command to unlock or start your car.
I think the phone car stsrter is a great idea, in fact the idea was mine in 2003. I sent the idea to myself via registered mail then asked GM if they would buy my idea to be used with the onstar system. I did not tell them my idea specifically. They told me that I may as well give them the idea because their inventors would come up with it themselves anyway. I did not give it to them and planned to develope it myself but since then I have had four surgeries, hundreds of seizures and missed 45 plus weeks of work. Therefore I could not afford to go forward. I just heard about this use of the phone on radio yesterday. I wonder if my registered mail could be worth something. Oh well, great use for the phone anyway. It will be nice to start the car from a distance while at the restaurant and arrive at a warm auto. Some winters have brought us 30 to 40 below temps.