Can You Unlock Car Doors Remotely using a Mobile Phone?

I still think it is a video made with the e mail as script

And Amit,

We all know the credibility of these “news” channels

This is impossible. The reason is that key transmits a wireless signal to the car. This wireless signal cannot be transmitted through a cell phone as cell phones carry only voice frequencies.

Yeah Amit, I too had read it many times and wish to confirm the authenticity of the very technology involved, if this really works, I wonder…

Yes, it works. Why don’t you try it yourself.

It does work , but you need a car with auto lock type of entry key (you know those key chains with the open close buttons).

It is impossible. If that is the case so many of the cars would have stolen.

It works. I heard it on a local radio mechanic show in Orlando and told my father-in-law about it. He tried it with his mustang and it opened the doors.

The cell phone frequencies carry more than just voices.

I tried this technique. But this doesn’t work for me. Moreover the GSM / CDMA signal doesn’t have such capability to carry frequency of the IR. But I had seen the video before. I am not sure about whether it is genuine.

Yes, It also worked well when my father in law forgot his car’s key inside. When he realised that he had forgotten his keys, he immediately called my mother in law. The distance was about 55 km.

As my mother in law pushed the key button, the doors were unlocked at the same time

This story is completeley true, as Ambuj stated, why don’t you try it before judging something..

Best Wishes from İstanbul..

I typed this response via my cellphone while a friend held his next to the keyboard.

Ya, I tried this trick a year back and its told by an AutoCops engineer, who installed the Remote locking Kit in my Car, It works

we have a honda civic ‘08 and we just tested it. my gf was inside the house and i went out into the rain and stood near the driveway where the car is parked. i called her from my cell and she held the key near her cell and clicked and… it damn well worked! she then tried to lock again and it works both ways. try it. NICE ONE Amit! thx!

I tried it w/ two different car locks and w/ GSM and CDMA, didn’t work for me.. @grizzlyadam, that was funny!

Yeah…I too thing that this might work… the wireless signals are carried across mobiles.

It works. I know it from many days and I think i knew it from labnol.org blog only. I have used this in an emergency situation too.

that is imposible, only for the reason of:
for close the car, you need the key for the door of the driver. if this “guy” forget the key, the door still open.

no wireless, no IR, no bluetooth, no radiotransmition needed. just logic!
greetings from chile!

Comforting though it may be to imagine you can unlock your car door in an emergency by receiving a distant signal via your cell phone, it can’t possibly work - not with the technology as it now stands, at any rate.

Here’s why:

Your remote car key operates by sending a weak, encrypted radio signal to a receiver inside the automobile, which in turn activates the door locks.

Since the system works on radio waves, not sound, the only conceivable way a signal from your spare remote could be picked up by one cell phone and relayed to your car’s onboard receiver by another would be if both phones were capable of sending and receiving at exactly the same frequency as the remote itself - which they can’t be, given that all remote entry devices operate at frequencies between 300 and 500 MHz, while all mobile phones, by law, operate at 800 MHz and higher.

It’s apples vs. oranges, in other words. Your cell phone can no more transmit the type of signal needed to unlock a car door than your remote key is capable of dialing up your Aunt Mary … though no one can predict what miracles the future may bring.

Source: link

“Your remote car key operates by sending a weak, encrypted radio signal to a receiver inside the automobile, which in turn activates the door locks.

Since the system works on radio waves, not sound, the only conceivable way a signal from your spare remote could be picked up by one cell phone and relayed to your car’s onboard receiver by another would be if both phones were capable of sending and receiving at exactly the same frequency as the remote itself - which they can’t be, given that all remote entry devices operate at frequencies between 300 and 500 MHz, while all mobile phones, by law, operate at 800 MHz and higher.”

This is possible if key transmits a wireless signal based on ultrasound ;) (radio signal cant transmit by cell phone)

Funny, left the keys in the car, but not the phone. :)

When I read about it a couple of years ago, I was myself skeptical. I tried it, and it worked (using Nokia 3110 as transmitting and Nokia 3200 as receiving handset; both GSM). So have others who have tried (though some have failed). I know theoretically speaking, it is highly unlikely. Mobile phones work on sound waves in audible frequencies while remote keys work on electromagnetic waves in radio frequency range. But since seeing is believing, all I can say is that my understanding of the mobile phone operation is incomplete. Theories should be made to fit the observations, not the other way round.

@axioma: Leave your car keys inside the cars, close the door’s locking bolt, and while holding the handle in open position, shut the door. Your keys will be inside and you would be locked out. Don’t blame me if this works.

@Amit: Why don’t you try yourself and tell us what came out. I am not sure what you will observe because we are hearing about both positive and negative results.

yes it is possibe.i tried it you need one “dual tone multi frequency” receiver which receives your mobile phone signal.linked this to your car locks as simple as pie.

I dont care if people say that controls use electromacnetic waves so its imposible, I dont care your theorics, I dont have the explanation but I did it and it works.

Amit: I did try this once a few months back and it does work. I was skeptical but seeing is believing.

This does not work. I have tested it in different cities (I was in Austin car was in Houston). Snopes also confirmed it false: link

I have also read about this in a forwarded email from one of my old friends but it sounds senseless !!

I wonder if anyone has tried this ?

Wow, there seems to be a lot of people responded to this one. I first heard about it on a radio show and they tried it live, but it didn’t work.
I guess if people are really genuine, then it might work on some car models but not on others.
Regards
Jeff

It can work because every wireless transceiver is not “perfect”. So the emitted signals from the car lock key could interfere the output stage in the mobile’s RF unit. So it is maybe a ‘parasitic’ transmission? ;)
I think it is the question how good the mobile is screened against outer electro-magnetic radiation.

Oh a news channel featured it…..Then i will not believe it………..just let be a another useless trick

As stated by others- the signal from the remote physically cannot transmit over voice signal on a cell phone.

This was already disproved on Mythbusters as well.

The car must be atleast a few km away from the person with the remote for the test to be legit. Then post result.

This does not work and I tried and all my friends tried last year when we read somewhere.

For someone who says it worked, I don’t know what to say.

RD

But this trick SURELY works!! it might be because signals are ultrasonic(sound waves) which transmits through mobile.

Is it possible that some of the keys work on the ultrasonic sound waves while others on IR? Seems unlikely, but can sure help explain all the facts and discrepancies.

there is a famous show on BBC called “i didn’t know that”.they show great stuff and this particular case was show one day.6 people with the remote keys went into a parking lot in London and tried every possible way.as some one suggested that they should have been a few km away to see if the signal really came from cell to cell,they did exactly that.the caller was inside a mall and the car was at least a km away.well all their patience went out after an hour or so …..with no luck.
then they asked the chief designer of a key manufacturing company what the reason is.and he said the exact same reason as earlier said that cellphones mic can only detect sound waves and its speaker is just a normal speaker ……not a radio wave emitter.had it been the case then i guess our cellphones should have a radio tower.

oh yea.. it works. My phone can send ultrasound, convert analog sound and radio wave of different frequencies; basically all spectrum of radio wave. It’s a death ray device really.

“Comforting though it may be to imagine you can unlock your car door in an emergency by receiving a distant signal via your cell phone, it can’t possibly work - not with the technology as it now stands, at any rate.”

But it does.

This works! I’ve tried it. I locked my keys in the car while I was at the mall and I called home to my mom and using a Blackjack and an AT&T Tilt I was able to open it. But when I needed to get into my cousins car and we tried it, it didnt work. My cousin has an outdated Nokia, so it didnt go through, so i figured it works only when using phones of the same caliber

It doesn’t work!
Cell phones and their towers have filters and respond to only the carrier frequencies of cell phones and the range the voice frequencies (now digital signal) deflects the central carrier wave.
The FCC has strict rules and guidelines about how much interference a cell phone can cause to other electronic devices and how much it can be affected by outside interference.
If a remote key lock fob could be transmitted via a cell phone, then surely the local FM radio station could also be transmitted the same way. After all, the frequencies of FM radio is much closer to that of the voice than is the key fob frequencies. Yet, people use their cell phones near radio station transmitters all the time and the other party they’re talking to can hear them plainly but not the radio station.
You’d think a microwave oven (900MHz) would interfere with the cell phone even more so, since it’s the closest in the transmitter’s frequency. Yet, again, people also talk on the phone while warming up their pizza pops.

last tuesday my key fob did not work on my drive a week before chistmas.had the car about 5 years no problems.next day 6 out of 7 neighbours have got the same problem all with key fob problems but all diferent makes i’ve been reading its an interference problem on 433Mhz but other users alocated these frequencies are MOD &radio users but not knowing who to speak to I am stuck.

Yea this is completely true, I tried it with my brother because we heard of the same story. We purposely tried it to see if it works by driving away from the house, around the block, first we tested to make sure his keys couldn’t unlock the car by some freak accident. Then, while talking on the phone, I told him to try it again with the cellphone technique and like magic, it worked.

Pretty cool and even if it doesn’t work for all cars, etc, why not give it a shot when you’re stuck in this situation? Definitely doesn’t hurt to try it on your own car next time this happens to you!

what sorts of cars have you guys been trying it on when it did and didn’t work?

LMAO @ all those who said it works, nice try but it
definitely DOES NOT work. It’s an urban myth,Cars with remote keyless entry (RKE) systems cannot be unlocked by relaying a key fob transmitter signal via a cellular telephone. RKE systems and cell phones utilize different types of signals and transmit them at different frequencies. Therefore it’s
impossible for this to work.

@Dunnie,
I think you are trying to make the classic mistake of trying to fit the fact to the theory. The people here who say it works (including me) are not saying “we heard it works”. We are saying “we have tried it, and it works”. If it is an urban myth, then please explain how it worked for us. Some of us have even confirmed it work with car miles away. I agree with you in the sense that I do not understand how it is technologically possible (see my comment on 10.11.08), but having done it myself (NOT witness someone on TV do it), I do not disbelieve that it can work. I also agree that it does not work in all cases and believe those who say it didn’t work for them, but I can’t ignore my own experiment where it worked and I believe most (if not all) of the people who said it worked for them are speaking the truth.