Comment by vel0city

Comment by vel0city 14 hours ago

8 replies

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I absolutely rave about it. Every time I get a rental car that needs a cut key in an ignition cylinder it's a massive pain. I wouldn't buy a car that doesn't have push button ignition and would prefer for all cars I buy going forward to have phone as a key as an option.

For my personal cars I either use phone as a key or I'll keep the key fob in my bag. So I just walk up to the car, the car either auto unlocks or I press the button on the door, I get in, I press the button, and I go. When I'm done I just grab my bag and walk away and the car will auto-lock or I just press the door button. So smooth, I never need to really handle the key at all. It just stays in its specific pocket in my bag or it's just my phone in my pocket.

With a cut key, I walk up to the car. I need to fish around in my bag to grab the key. I then need to stick the key in the door and turn it, using care to not scratch the paint. I get in the car, need to insert the key, turn it and hold it long enough for it to start. When I'm done driving, I take the key out, grab my bag, and get out of the car. I then need to once again insert my key into the door once again being careful to not scratch anything, turn it to lock. Then I need to put the key away again.

And then phone as a key is incredibly nice, definitely my preferred way. I can easily leave the house for most errands with nothing but my phone on me. It's my car key, my payment method, my transit pass, my paperback novel, my portable music player, my camera, my maps, my communicator, all in one tiny package. Incredibly freeing compared to having to carry a bunch of junk in my pockets just to get groceries or whatever.

cholantesh 13 hours ago

>With a cut key, I walk up to the car. I need to fish around in my bag to grab the key. I then need to stick the key in the door and turn it, using care to not scratch the paint. I get in the car, need to insert the key, turn it and hold it long enough for it to start. When I'm done driving, I take the key out, grab my bag, and get out of the car. I then need to once again insert my key into the door once again being careful to not scratch anything, turn it to lock. Then I need to put the key away again.

I'll be honest, this reads like a drastic overcomplication of a very simple transaction. Why can't you just put them in your pocket? Are you walking around like a frontier town sheriff with cylinder lock keys on an antique keyring?

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  • vel0city 13 hours ago

    > Why can't you just put them in your pocket?

    Modern car keys, even cut ones, are often giant behemoths of keys. They need transponders for the immobilizer. They choose to integrate the remote into it, and either way I'd probably still have the remote on the same keychain. They're annoying and uncomfortable to have in my pocket. If I have a choice to not have to have an expensive big giant chunk of plastic in my pocket every moment I'm out of my house or choose to have that giant expensive chunk of plastic in my pocket every moment, which do you think I'd rather choose?

    And then if I have to actually take it out of my pocket and stick it into things? Even more annoying when there's the option of just not having to do that. Why would I prefer to have to take this annoying chunk of plastic out of my pocket every time I want to get into and start my car?

    Imagine if every time you wanted to open your fridge you had to fish out a key from your pocket, put it in a cylinder, and turn it. Imagine if every time you wanted to flush out your toilet you had to do a couple of extra steps just because. To turn on the sink, you have to do this extra little pattern before you just lift the handle! Sounds great, why not add a bunch of extra little steps to everything in your life when you don't have to.

    Its like I'm talking to the people in the cave. You don't even see how nice it is to just not have to carry the car key because its been just so ingrained into your life, that you accept it as something normal and expected. Who wouldn't want to carry around a $200 chunk of plastic half the size of a baseball in their pocket everywhere they go that does nothing but unlock and start their car?!

    Its freeing to not have to carry a ton of junk with you everywhere you go.

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    • cholantesh 8 hours ago

      >You don't even see how nice it is to just not have to carry the car key because its been just so ingrained into your life, that you accept it as something normal and expected.

      Possibly, but alternatively, you've rationalized that a litany of features that proffer negligible improvements to the experience of driving a car and entrench car dependency are in fact worth having what you regard as cartoonishly oversized keys* that can give malicious actors faster access to a $50000 vehicle.

      * I've very recently had about 5 different ones in my pockets on extended test drives and only the CX-5 I think fits this rubric, but meh

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      • vel0city 7 hours ago

        Yes, because car theft was unheard of before wireless key fobs. Seriously? Are you not familiar with the Kia Boys? Having wireless transponders has massively reduced the rates of theft over the days of cut keys. And if it's all going to be relying on the security of a wireless handshake anyways, there's little point in having the tumbler that can be trivially raked. Or just overpowered and turned anyways.

        And hilarious you're tying the idea of people having pushbutton ignitions to continuing car dependency. Yes, if only we still required cut keys on cars, we would have eliminated car dependency in the US! Tons of people were thinking "maybe cars aren't all they're cracked up to be..." but then they saw "ooh, push button ignition! Nevermind, defund public transit!"

        I'm very pro public transit. I ride it, I vote for it, I write to my congress critters about it, I champion it to my friends and strangers all the time. I want to see it succeed. But guess what...I have my transit pass on my phone as well! Eee gads!

        Once again, it all boils down to why would I choose to do the more annoying process when I don't have to? The cut key isn't really providing any extra security (once again, see Kia Boys). Would you choose to have to insert a key and turn it to open your fridge? Why would I want to have to do that instead of just pressing a button on my car? Personally, even pressing the button is a bit overkill, but I guess I'm a little old fashioned. In the end I do still prefer thinking about the car is either "on" or "off", as in is the drive train ready to operate or not.

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graemep 14 hours ago

I do not get the appeal either. You have to put something in your pocket and take it out occasionally.

> And then phone as a key is incredibly nice, definitely my preferred way.

Your phone becomes a point of failure for one more thing.

> Incredibly freeing compared to having to carry a bunch of junk in my pockets just to get groceries or whatever.

All I put in my pocket to buy groceries are keys and a wallet.

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  • vel0city 13 hours ago

    > Your phone becomes a point of failure for one more thing.

    So one critical point of failure instead of multiple critical points of failure. If you lose your car keys on your trip, your trip is still a failure and you're stranded. If you lose your wallet on your trip it's still a failure, and now you have to go cancel a handful of cards and you're out the cash in the wallet and what not and need to get a new ID. If you lose your phone it's still a bad day, a potentially expensive and useful device went missing.

    If I lose my phone it's the same bad day as if you lose yours, a potentially expensive device went missing. I can use my backup passphrase on the car to get home. I still have my regular wallet at home to fall back on, and all my payment info was encrypted and can be remotely wiped with a few clicks. I didn't lose any government documents.

    And in the end, it's not like I'm breaking my phone every day or something. Phones are pretty resilient these days especially when thinking about short trips around town. I've had one phone break from physical damage in the past decade. Seems like an overblown concern to me. As for "what if your phone dies?", the car is a 74kWh battery. If my phone dies while I'm next to 74kWh of electricity I'm an idiot and failed to have extremely basic plans.

    > All I put in my pocket to buy groceries are keys and a wallet.

    So 3x more junk than me for otherwise no reason.

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    • graemep 13 hours ago

      > . If you lose your car keys on your trip, your trip is still a failure

      I have my phone so i can phone for help. I have my wallet so I can pay for things.

      > If I lose my phone it's the same bad day as if you lose yours, a potentially expensive device went missing

      Nope, because its like everything that could happen to me happening at once.

      You have a lot less backup.

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      • vel0city 13 hours ago

        > Nope, because its like everything that could happen to me happening at once

        No, because I can still drive home even if I lose my phone.

        If you lose your wallet, you're not buying the groceries. If you lose your keys, those groceries aren't getting home anytime soon.

        And even then, this is still a massively rare occurrence. How often do you smash your phone on the ground, daily? Weekly? Monthly? I'll gladly trade a slightly less convenient day once a decade+ for having to deal with all this business of having to carry extra junk every day of my life.

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