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New Device Lets Anyone Unlock Their Cars With a Smartphone

Not a long time ago, Apple and BMW announced a partnership whose purpose was to allow car owners to unlock their vehicles using nothing but their iPhones, therefore making the old-school physical keys more or less obsolete.
KeZ OBD2 adapter 6 photos
Photo: Kickstarter
KeZ OBD2 adapterKeZ OBD2 adapterKeZ OBD2 adapterKeZ OBD2 adapterKeZ OBD2 adapter
And while nobody can deny this is such a pretty cool feature that perfectly makes sense given our digital future, it would normally require a new-generation car model that would specifically come with the necessary hardware to provide keyless access.

But as it turns out, this isn’t necessarily true, as someone has invented an adapter that can provide car owners with access to their vehicles right from their phones.

Called Kez, this little gadget plugs into the OBD2 port of your car to provide a series of modern capabilities, including unlocking the doors from a smartphone, vehicle access sharing, smoke detection, battery monitoring, mileage tracking, and speed control and logs.

And while the mileage tracking, the battery info, and the logs aren’t necessarily new given an OBD2 adapter does have access to such information, the key unlocking part is definitely the one that caught our attention.

The parent company says the whole thing works in almost any car manufactured after 1996, so in theory, you don’t need a smart vehicle to benefit from keyless access inside.

It all comes down to a mobile app that can be installed on the smartphone and which can provide access to anyone in the car using nothing but a PIN code. This makes it just the right choice even for car rental services or sharing platforms, though on the other hand, you can’t turn on the engine using the mobile app. Instead, you can just put the keys in the glove box but control the vehicle access from the phone.

Kez, however, is still in the project phase, and now it needs everybody’s support to come to be. Listed on Kickstarter for crowdfunding support, this invention is currently at 12 percent of its funding goal, but with 26 days to go, there’s a chance it may get a chance to hit the shelves.

If the $99 adapter is fully funded, the shipping should start in January 2022.

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About the author: Bogdan Popa
Bogdan Popa profile photo

Bogdan keeps an eye on how technology is taking over the car world. His long-term goals are buying an 18-wheeler because he needs more space for his kid’s toys, and convincing Google and Apple that Android Auto and CarPlay deserve at least as much attention as their phones.
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