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Comment by 40four | Hacker News Reader

My ex bought a new Subaru last year and I was shocked to find out their remote start system is locked behind a similar subscription service. I worked in car sales for a bit years ago, and I had never seen this before. The models that had the option, only required the key fob, same as same as unlocking your doors.

This is not the direction we want to go. Imagine if it was required the be on the subscription plan to use the remote at all, even to unlock your doors. And if you don’t pay the bill, you have to use the key by hand.

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I bought a 2020 Forester. The only stuff that needs a subscription are things that use the car’s built in cell service:

- remote lock, unlock, start, check status

- see where my car is

- set alarm email notification if my kid leaves a predefined area or drives over a certain speed limit

- blue button for concierge

- red button for emergencies

Three free years then they want $20CAD/yr. I’m usually cranky about these things but this seems like a no brainer.

I’d pay that amount simply for the “human will see if your airbags went off and will cal 911 with your GPS position if you don’t respond.”

Is there a good reason to require cell service to unlock a door or just car companies taking on external dependencies for no reason?

It isn’t “unlock a door.” It’s “unlock a door from your phone regardless of where you are as long as you have cell signal and the car has cell signal, it doesn’t have to be in range of the fob.”

Correct. My fob works the way they have for decades.

With this service I can lock my car from a different city. I can see where it is. I can set a polygon zone where it emails me if my kids leave the city and whatnot.

It requires cell service and servers. So I get that it requires a subscription.

It'd be nice if you could put your own SIM in though.

I wonder if there is a SIM or if it’s just software managed in some proprietary chip.

>I can set a polygon zone where it emails me if my kids leave the city and whatnot.

That is really interesting. How did you handle that conversation with your kids? Or am I imagining that it's a bigger deal than it really is since they've grown up in a world where everything and every one is connected to the internet and tracked all the time?

I guess I saw it differently - which is, in what world are parents handing over a motor vehicle to their children, and good lord are there going to be a billion+ restrictions/safeguards on what they can do with that vehicle if their parents are not present in it.

Also - tracking when a vehicle leaves a polygon zone feels like a minor subset of the already more privacy invasive "Where is this vehicle" that presumably exists already.

My kids are 3 and 4 so it’s hypothetical for now… I hope.

But I think it’s a very good question. The way I would handle it is:

“I won’t set an alert. If I ever feel like I have to, you won’t be loaned the car. As always, please endeavour to text me a couple times to help me rest easy that you’re safe. You’ll understand when you’re a dad. If I don’t hear from you I might peek at your location just to know you’re where you planned to be.”

Naturally the conversation is much longer and spans a great many years.

They have these on ODB2 connectors and have for a while.

It would work on any car. And have some with cell service capable as well. You can use it to monitor specifics on a car (ie oil pressure) in real-time. But you can get cellular enabled ones that would alert you or track the vehicle as well.

You absolutely don’t need something new for this and you can decouple it from your make/model so if you want to swap/change/upgrade or cancel it’s trivial.

How else are you going to do it except using a cellular signal? Conventional RF in a tiny key fob only has limited range.

I picked up a new Mazda CX-5, was told that a satellite was involved in the signal routing for the remote start?

Not sure if I believe that.

Sounds like how a salesman would describe the feature.

Satellite, same way a satellite might be involved in a mobile call or text or call..

I've found it handy, it not critical.

Cell phone based remote starts handy. I can start the car while out of fob range.

I really only use the cell unlock when I forget to grab the key to get something out of the car. I could walk back inside to get the key, but it ain't worth it.

Honest curiosity, but in what situations do you use it? I'm having a hard time imaging a scenario where I'd want to remotely lock or unlock my car, nevermind starting the engine when it's out of sight

Sometimes I park outside my garage and then forget if I locked it. It’s nice that I get an email confirmation because it’s too far away to hear the horn.

Peeve: cars/ car owners that lock the car and the horn beeps.

Yeah. I love that my car doesn’t do that when I remotely lock it. They thought it all through.

I was on mobile, so I didn't elaborate in my original comment.

Skiing is the most common case for me. On my last run, I'll typically get the car going while I'm on the lift. That means it's ready to drive (not just pre-hot) when I get my ski gear put away.

I think my wife uses it sometimes at work. She's on the far end of the building from her vehicle, so out of range of the fob.

They are actually putting emergency button under subscription?

I'm quite glad that we have mandatory eCall system for all newer cars in EU that must work regardless of any subscription. I think the only difference (but it may vary from manufacturer to manufacturer) is that without subscription it will only call 112, instead of allowing either 112 or their own call center.

Good question. I’m not sure, actually. How has the emergency button worked for these systems the last 15 years or so with OnStar and such?

I bought a 2018 Ford, used. It has a built-in wifi, with ATT support.

If I pay $200 per year, I get the full mobile hotspot, wifi, 25GBs per month.

If I don't pay (& I didn't), it does NOT give me wifi access, but remote start from app, location, mileage, any notifications or messages all work, along with journey trackings.

$20 / yr is perfectly reasonable. GM wants $50/mo for that service. The basic on/off, lock / unlock function is still $25/mo.

Which Subaru model? I think most of them still have the option for a traditional RF based key fob. I have that on my Crosstrek.

For example:

https://parts.subaru.com/p/Subaru_2021_Crosstrek/Remote-Engi...

Note that in the description they say:

> This Genuine Subaru Accessory is an alternative for customers who do not enroll in STARLINK Safety and Security Plus.

That interesting. I remember those little extra fobs now. It was a 2021 Outback. It’s possible the sales person didn’t make that clear, and just wanted to close the subscription deal. She bought later it later, after the sale, and never looked into it I’m sure.

It’s still lame when you spend $45K on a car and you have to carry and extra device, if you don’t buy the subscription. They definitely want you to buy it though. Interesting to see Toyota try to force it on folks who are used to it being a given.

Uh in this case the “extra device” is your car key

Subaru disabled their telematics system in Massachusetts rather than comply with the state law requiring they give access to independent mechanics. They are incredibly petty.

Never ascribe to pettiness that which is adequately explained by laziness.

As anyone who has built internal infrastructure knows, giving a third party access to a system never designed for third party access isn’t always trivial. Even if the tech is up to scratch, there would still be a need to audit the system top to bottom. Documentation will need to be checked and improved.

Disabling a feature for a tiny number of customers is, by comparison, extremely simple.

Now that we have the MA law, how come CA doesn't have something similar ? Is there something in the works ? Usually, CA is at the forefront of vehicle compliance laws.

CA is on the forefront of emissions controls and other environmental stuff. CA repair laws are owned by anti-repair companies like Apple.

Next Up: Samsung says using the remote control for their TVs require a monthly subscription. /s

It's just as absurd. I had an aftermarket remote start/keyless unlock installed on a car that didn't even have autolocks for less than a year's worth of proposed subscription fees for this. Greedy bastards justs being greedy.

Of course not, it’s a free service that’s paid for by them displaying ads over your content. It’s so depressing that that isn’t even satire but an actual real thing.

If they can make money on the sale of the item AND then make more money by selling your viewing habits from using the item, why not increase with a subscription remote service? The idea isn't any less asinine than the Toyota ploy.

With the service, you can click channels up or down. Without, you can only change channels in one direction which forces you to view all channels similar to the scene in Toy Story. This also gives all channels impressions, so it would benefit them. Who cares about the user.

Also with the service, the keypad on the remote can also be enabled so you can dial in the channel number directly. This is an upgrade of the basice service to the Pro version for an extra small nominal fee.

The joke was that Samsung already puts ads on peoples TVs despite them having paid for the TV.

Or, you can buy your TV with Special Offers, so it listens to your conversations via a mic built into the remote and sends you better targeted ads.

Forget the ads. You're going to talk about something, and it's just going to place the order for it. You know you're going to order it anyways, so now you just don't have to. We know what you want and you'll take it and like it.

> This is not the direction we want to go

You are correct this is not the direction consumers want to go, but it is absolutely without a doubt the direction companies want to go.

I used to work at a very large Telco, and it was common practice at the end of the month for the Marketing team to sit around with their feet on the boardroom table and say things like "How about we introduce a $50 fee for event x (i.e. customer downgrades package / customer disconnects / customer changes payment method, etc.) - the event happens 10,000 times per month, so that means we just added half a mil in revenue a month. Done, the whole Marketing team gets a bonus.

A few months later they think of another similar idea, get bonuses again, around and around.

That is literally how it happens.

I was shooting heroin and reading _The Fountainhead_ in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief. "Bad news, detective. We got a situation."

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