this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2024
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Easy, do it all locally using local WiFi. It doesn't need cellular to work, unless they wanted to charge for this. Major companies often get cellular for pennies anyways for mass deployments, and seeing their profits they could handle that.
How in the world would you use “local WiFi” outside of your house? What about all those people in apartments where their car isn’t near their house. Or at work in a parking garage? Would you expect it to get to connect to a randomly open access point?
That’s why I said removing it from the fob was the asshole move, but any app based version is going to most likely require a cellular connection for the car, which costs money to maintain
Then those can pay the $10/mo for the cellular based version. Or even then, one could just... provide their own SIM, if only they'd let you. Most carriers let you have an extra data only SIM to your line for fairly cheap for iPads and laptops, why not for your car?
The thing was deliberately engineer such that paying them is the only option. And those servers will inevitably get shut down at some point, making it all useless anyway.
A lot of cars have cell service.. I'm not aware of any that allow for BYO SIM. It's a great idea, though.
My Audi used to back in 2013. Open the front panel and there were three slots. Two for SD cards (one nav, one music) and a SIM slot where you could bring your own. There were no connected services that you could use an app with, but it could access Google Maps, Yelp and have an in-car hotspot.