11 ms·

Users without a cell connection find they can’t get back into their Zipcar

61 points by lxm 4y ago

z9znz 4y ago
As Apple is making emergency satellite communication a consumer thing, I expect other companies will follow. So at least in unusual situations like this no-cell-service one, spending a cold night in the woods is hopefully less of a risk.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  Apple’s satellite connection is still very experimental (you need to initiate it, you have to find the range and do the ritual, and it’s on one of the worst connected provider with limited coverage), and feels more like a checkbox for marketing than an actual mass ready feature. I’d put it in the same bin as lidar: it’s cool they got something working at all in such a constrained package. Hopefully it will become better/more generally useful within a decade. (nowadays satellite phones or portable modems are actually pretty small, capable, and not that expensive. Consumer level access is already a thing in that regard)
  - z9znz 4y ago
    > Hopefully it will become better/more generally useful within a decade This is kind of what Apple has always done: bring a new (cool) thing to the consumer, even if it isn't as good as it sounds. But so far they seem to catch up and make it good after a couple of iterations. And in this case it puts that checkbox in the consumer's mind, so other manufacturers will probably put some effort into matching or exceeding it. If I were planning on being in places with no coverage and some risk, I would buy one of the relatively inexpensive Garmin satellite comm/safety devices. But most normal, non-wilderness-adventure people are not going to do that. Maybe this Apple feature will save a few people.
    - makeitdouble 4y ago
      The funny thing is, that approach used to be from Samsung or Google: bring in a shiny looking, but immature and still kinda useless feature and try to make it decent in the next iterations. Like always on display, the foldables, pen support on the Note series, or project Soli on the Pixel 4 etc. Apple used to wait for a good implementation to jump on the bandwagon. Now we have all the makers throwing uncooked spaghetti at the wall, and so many recent Apple headline feature are kinda half-assed (including the other Watch “leaps” like ecg or blood oxygen levels which are just not there yet and might never be)
generalizations 4y ago
Archive: https://archive.ph/JVFBR https://archive.ph/JVFBR
ccooffee 4y ago
This reads like a hit-piece against ZipCar. The author doesn't give any advice, and merely retells a few anecdotes about people being stranded by parking a ZipCar in a place with poor cell service. This isn't a problem I'd thought of before, but with the title "How Not to Go Off the Grid", I some advice. (The author doesn't even seem to offer the somewhat-obvious conclusion of "don't park a ZipCar somewhere without any cell service".)
- neonate 4y ago
  It doesn't read like a hit piece to me. I doubt most people would think to check their cell phone signal before parking a car.
  - alvarezbjm-hn 4y ago
    After reading this, I will be checking car connectivity before renting one. That is, try to get one without connectivity
- nicoburns 4y ago
  To be fair, this is a pretty bad issue. I've used two other car sharing services, and neither of them had this problem, only requiring cell service only when you picked up the car: - One issued keys which worked independently once activated - The other worked via bluetooth.
andrewflnr 4y ago
Or: don't take your rental car that relies on cell service out of cell range. Was anyone else expecting a story about actually going off the grid, you know, permanently?
- Scoundreller 4y ago
  This hasn’t happened to me, but I would have thought it was your phone over Bluetooth that unlocked the car after you book it. I don’t 100% know how zipcar operates in each market but I’m guessing these long-distance bookings are pre-booked and you can’t just leave the car in the middle of nowhere. Your phone and the car would only need to phone home at the start of a reservation. I guess the car itself doesn’t have cellular at all and relies on the user’s phone? Could easily run into issues where the user has service but the car does not. Could also see this playing out in underground garages. It’s unclear why the car needs to phone-home for each unlock/start (but no restrictions on operation) within a reservation within its geo-fence. Common sense would be if the car is where you last dropped it off, it should allow you back in within the time of your reservation.
- _jal 4y ago
  Kind of, but it is the WSJ. Tangent, but it is interesting to me, how many people now seem to be unwilling to go out of cell range. It reminds me of people decades ago who would go camping, but only with a car. If you had to leave powered-travel range, they were out. This is less the case for me now, but there was a time when leaving my cell at home was a huge luxury. And I still enjoy days when I can go do things without it - pretty much the only time anymore when my time is truly my own.
  - joshgachnang 4y ago
    We just ran into this for my yearly Boundary Waters canoe trip where cell coverage is spotty at best if you're a couple lakes in. Some of our significant others, especially those who just had or were expecting kids, convinced us to rent a satellite communicator for emergencies. I get it, but part of the experience is being completely disconnected and knowing you're on your own if anything goes wrong.
swader999 4y ago
Going off grid and all the related complexities is quite an interesting thing. Unlike this article.
- dang 4y ago
  It's amazing how discussions are conditioned by titles. I've changed the title to something more specific now.
ok_dad 4y ago
That "lodge" the 3 girls had to stay in was the Salish Lodge & Spa [0], which is pretty damn expensive. I recognized it from a stay there once, it's a beautiful area, I think it was $300-$400 for the cheap rooms. Hopefully, these companies can figure out a way to prevent this, or to warn the users when they might lose access to the car, or else someday this will be a national news article when a whole family dies in a desert somewhere. [0]: "Salish Lodge & Spa, Railroad Avenue, Snoqualmie, WA 98024"
- int_19h 4y ago
  Snoqualmie is 4 hours away from Forks by car, but the article says that it took them 45 minutes to drive back to the trailhead next day, so it must've been some other place. The photo in the article is probably from earlier in their roadtrip - if you're driving to the Olympic peninsula from the east, stopping somewhere in the I-90 corridor is natural.
  - mikestew 4y ago
    There was also some mention of Rattlesnake Lake, which is in about the same area(ish) of the Salish Lodge, but equally as distant from Forks as Snoqualmie. So I don't know what the whole story is, either. OTOH, the point of the story has nothing to do with their exact location in WA, either. :-)
  - tomcam 4y ago
    Confirmed. Live near the falls, have driven to Forks. That’s a 4+ hour trip not 45 minutes.
  - ok_dad 4y ago
    The natural area around there had very bad cell service, plus I recognize the little store they made a call from in the article as the little store inside Salish lodge. Plus, it was 45 minutes from the trail where they got picked up by the couple, not 45 minutes from Seattle that they mentioned in the article?
    - 4y ago
doublerabbit 4y ago
I laugh, but then again I recently lost my job a few weeks ago. Thought I would fly home to check-in with my mother and take a sabbatical holiday from the 15 years. I got out of the taxi, hadn't realised that my phone had fallen out of my pocket; ran for the taxi but was too late. The first feeling was anxiety. After accepting that, it was jealously. Walking past all the strangers in the airport on their phone while I wait for my flight with no music proceeded to anger. I wanted to lash out at someone for my own mistake; delayed flight or something would of given me a perfect excuse. However everything went smoothly surprisingly as the flights home are normally delayed. And then after three hours of flight finally acceptance that for the next four weeks I won't have a phone. In these four weeks, I've gotten a interview (tomorrow), surprised my mother as I've never been a museum fan and become really eager to wanting to visit more. Found and finally resolved things about myself and have been reading more books than I have ever of thought. Tonights book was on surrealism. It does have it caveats which really it doesn't. I have gotten in contact with the taxi driver, they being scottish had their line of "enjoy your holiday without the pish of technology". I wanted to be offgrid and I have been. Maybe this is the wine speaking, but back to my book on surrealism which I never ever thought I would be reading. But to do something simple living life for a bit without technology really does wonders, more good than bad. Sounds scary, but eh, I don't want it back. Would recommend.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  I really enjoyed your comment. I feel like it is vaguely unusual in structure. Typically a story that is dominated by tangents like this will be wheeling off in random directions. This is instead one cohesive story -- a single long tangent -- which is continuously walking away from the original topic, but is somehow linked back by the occasional tenuous connection. That book must have put you in a good writing space.
- sixstringtheory 4y ago
  I once flew to SF for a weeklong work onsite and realized as I was going through security that I'd left my phone on my bed at home. People at work looked at me like I was an alien, but honestly I had a better time in SF than I ever had before, just organically discovering different things as I walked around (which I always do anyways when I visit cities, much prefer walking to trains, and prefer trains to taxis/cars). Having a good book or two and journal helps alleviate the boredom in a much more fulfilling way. And then just allowing yourself to be bored and sit and think feels good too.
tomohawk 4y ago
We downloaded some shows from netflix before we went off grid so we would have something to watch in case there was some down time. Sure enough, we couldn't watch them. The netflix app needed to phone home before it would allow us to see them.
- HideousKojima 4y ago
  That's why you sail the seven seas and download them from places other than Netflix
- autoexec 4y ago
  That's DRM for you. Never trust it. Get a phone with expandable storage and fill your SD card(s) with GBs of non-DRM encumbered media and you can enjoy having it all instantly accessible to you whenever/wherever you want it for as long as you like. Control is what DRM takes from you, but we have the technology to take it back for ourselves.
  - Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y ago
    The 'R' does not stand for "rights" (but I'm sure you know that)
    - merely-unlikely 4y ago
      Not your (the consumer's) rights anyway.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    Or run your own server like emby or plex both have offline access / download for their mobile apps...
    - stavros 4y ago
      Plex offline has never worked for me. It always freezes and never downloads anything. It's astonishing how janky the Plex app is, even after so long.
kkfx 4y ago
Not really much about being "off-grid", only relevant to see how much absurd tech is build and offered... While I'm not off-grid, building my new home I try to reach a certain level of "local backups" to be "off-grid for some time", the real result is that so far all tech is designed to keep a door open to the vendor as much as possible, typically AGAINST formal owner/buyer interests. There is no "really off-grid" solution so far. There is really no protections so far because most of people DO NOT CARE being connected not together, a natural thing being social animals, but to few giants who master all "connections" like shepherds who manage their flocks. Cars? Oh, that's a nice part of the hall of shame: formally BEVs can be really off-grid since POTENTIALLY you can recharge them from local p.v. so virtually having years of limited autonomy. Well... ALL BEVs (and all new cars, in general) I know off are so stuffed of crapware and connected crap including ways to push the user connecting the car to craphones that being off grid for sure means being able to switch planet or perhaps try some far lands in Central Asia, South America or Antarctic... I do not know how much ability to survive in nature we lost while evolving vs how much actual earth is less fertile than the past, but well... I feel that the war to be off-grid in the sense of being a bit autonomous is simply an already lost war like privacy, for mere lack of fighters for the defending front. We can just spend money in expensive potential backups of various kind hoping those who have designed them will not use the big pile of backdoors a day.
m463 4y ago
I'd like to learn how to take my cellular-enabled car off the grid permanently.
- csours 4y ago
  There may be a fuse you can remove.
- grecy 4y ago
  Move to the Yukon
- andrewia 4y ago
  A lot of cars completely disable the modem when service expires (which makes sense since they don't want to pay $5/month to keep it active) which makes your car harder to exploit. But if you want more assurance, it takes less than an hour to unplug the antenna in your car. Look for leaked service manuals, repair videos on YouTube, or search for a replacement module so you can look at diagrams on parts websites. Once you know where it is, you can pry the interior panels and find the module (it should have an IMEI on it). Then find the cellular connector (it's often a standalone coaxial antenna/cable). For example, my Hyundai has cellular connectivity integrated into the head unit. I removed 2 screws to pry off the dashboard trim, removed 2 screws and 2 bolts, and pulled out the head unit (10 minutes). There were multiple coax connectors (such as for the FM antenna and satellite radio), but the cellular module was clearly visible through the ventilation slats so I yanked its connector (5 minutes). I taped the connector to the wiring harness so it doesn't rattle and reassembled everything (10 minutes). Less than 30 minutes overall, not bad for a hardware mod! I'm not against these systems because they offer a lot of convenience for people who need them. Some people need to pre-cool/pre-heat their car when it's parked several blocks away from their home or office, or they need warnings if they absentmindedly leave a window open or a door unlocked. Not to mention you could get to your car quickly and deter a thief if it sends glass break notifications. That's not worth the software vulnerabilities nor $10/month to me, so I disconnect the antenna for peace of mind. But some of my family members are glad to use these features because it improves their QoL. So I'm in favor of legislation that mandates a few years of security updates, and requires that a disable switch will actually disconnect the modem.
gw99 4y ago
I worry when this is an issue for all cars. I think I'm going to buy an old series Land Rover and electric convert it myself if that happens.
- chroma 4y ago
  This is only an issue for a few kinds of rental vehicles, and I doubt that will be the case for much longer. Teslas work just fine when out of cell range, as they unlock using your phone's bluetooth or an NFC card. If the car is in cell range, you can lock/unlock it remotely using an app on your phone.
  - dieselgate 4y ago
    I get the impression parent comment is less concerned about pragmatism and more focused on “freedom of choice”. An EV converted Land Rover would be awesome
FpUser 4y ago
I can't get what drives minds of the morons who introduce the types of "features". My frigging cat knows that mobile service can be unavailable for the whole shebang of the reasons or the phone itself might be non operational.
greggeter 4y ago
seltzered_ 4y ago
This is specifically a Zipcar (multiple vehicle vendors, less car infotainment integration) problem, even happens in urban garages. Similar article written about this a year or two ago. Reachnow (BMW based) when it was around solved the issue by having a pin code you enter, Car2Go (Mercedes based) probably also did I think. Here's the other hn post from 3 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20873234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20873234 , and my more detailed comment from then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20884046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20884046
- badwolf 4y ago
  Car2Go just allowed you to take the key with you during stopovers, so you don't have to deal with that.
- gamegoblin 4y ago
  Also, GIG Car Share will mail users an RFID card free of charge to solve this problem: https://gigcarshare.com/gig-card/ https://gigcarshare.com/gig-card/
  - gammarator 4y ago
    You have to watch out though, if you hold the card to the reader too long it will end your (perhaps prepaid, multi-day) reservation.
  - dieselgate 4y ago
    The gig card never worked for me in Seattle, not sure why but always needed to use the app to unlock. The card was one of the in theory “best parts” of Gig for me but oh well. Haven’t needed or used the service in over a year
- kotaKat 4y ago
  The weird thing is I was told in the past that Zipcar's telematics module would retain the last 'active' card when it's out of cell coverage, plus has a fixed set of 'local' cards programmed to it (eg, for fleet service). There is also typically a 'local' card available in situations like parking garages where the Zipcar is valeted up and away from the public. It'll always start the vehicle session, signal or no.
asiachick 4y ago
I don't know of a solution but ... it makes me think of all the quick rental bikes in the city. The moment they lose power/wifi no one can use any bikes. Maybe that's ok since you're likely only going a few km But it reminds me of vending machines in Japan. If I understand correctly they're set supposed to allow dispensing in the event of an earthquake. Of course Japanese society has less petty theft and vandalism which is why they can have the vending machines in the first place.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  Why would the solution be the physical key, stored in a lockbox (inside glovebox, perhaps). Initial unlock with phone, then use physical key, then use phone to lock at end of rental.
bijansf 4y ago
As a Zip Car user, it sure is a serious PITA...and sometimes worse than range anxiety...
diebeforei485 4y ago
Zipcar sent me a "zipcard" (a credit card sized card with an RFID chip) that I keep in my wallet. I find app unlock to be convenient but it doesn't work everywhere.
- cammikebrown 4y ago
  The article mentions the cards wouldn’t work, either.
  - diebeforei485 4y ago
    My experience having used Zipcar for 7+ years is that if you hold the card up to the reader for ~15 seconds, it unlocks even in areas with no connection.
- willnonya 4y ago
  I generally find using an app to unlock a car less convenient than a key. I think the use cases where the reverse seems true are pretty subjective at best. Or maybe I just grew up before cell phones ruled the world...
  - diebeforei485 4y ago
    For distributed rental cars this creates a key collect and return problem. The whole point of zipcar is cars in your neighborhood that you can book, walk to, unlock, and go.
  - dieselgate 4y ago
    I agree with you completely. It seems likely companies prefer app lock/unlock because it scales better, faster, cheaper. car shares are advertised as “download the app then drive”
0xbadcafebee 4y ago
Anyone know what the backend protocol is for those ZipCar mobile connections? Now I'm curious if anyone's tried hacking the cars by GSM spoofing. I usually do rentals for $35-$65 a day and have them for 24 hours + unlimited miles. Zipcar starts at $11/hr (more for bigger cars), with $90/year subscription, and up to $104/day, limited to 180 miles.
_s 4y ago
I've been a member of ZipCar for well over a decade, from when they first came to London and issued the plastic NFC cards. Then it was the smaller ones that could attach to a keyring, and for the past 5 or so years - just the mobile app. This is very anecdotal, but I never really had any issues - even more so, the last ZipCar hire I did took me from downtown SF to the Muir Woods (no cell reception at all). I had no issues locking / unlocking the car during the trip - I'm fairly certain it uses bluetooth for the connection between app and car; but likely needs data for starting or ending a trip.
- wutbrodo 4y ago
  I remember having issues with locking when going to Muir Woods, though I don't remember the details. I think one time years ago I just left it unlocked for our whole home (not my most responsible move)
- dieselgate 4y ago
  The most surprising part of this to me is finding parking at Muir Woods!

61 points by lxm 4y ago

As Apple is making emergency satellite communication a consumer thing, I expect other companies will follow. So at least in unusual situations like this no-cell-service one, spending a cold night in the woods is hopefully less of a risk.

makeitdouble 4y ago
Apple’s satellite connection is still very experimental (you need to initiate it, you have to find the range and do the ritual, and it’s on one of the worst connected provider with limited coverage), and feels more like a checkbox for marketing than an actual mass ready feature. I’d put it in the same bin as lidar: it’s cool they got something working at all in such a constrained package. Hopefully it will become better/more generally useful within a decade. (nowadays satellite phones or portable modems are actually pretty small, capable, and not that expensive. Consumer level access is already a thing in that regard)
- z9znz 4y ago
  > Hopefully it will become better/more generally useful within a decade This is kind of what Apple has always done: bring a new (cool) thing to the consumer, even if it isn't as good as it sounds. But so far they seem to catch up and make it good after a couple of iterations. And in this case it puts that checkbox in the consumer's mind, so other manufacturers will probably put some effort into matching or exceeding it. If I were planning on being in places with no coverage and some risk, I would buy one of the relatively inexpensive Garmin satellite comm/safety devices. But most normal, non-wilderness-adventure people are not going to do that. Maybe this Apple feature will save a few people.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    The funny thing is, that approach used to be from Samsung or Google: bring in a shiny looking, but immature and still kinda useless feature and try to make it decent in the next iterations. Like always on display, the foldables, pen support on the Note series, or project Soli on the Pixel 4 etc. Apple used to wait for a good implementation to jump on the bandwagon. Now we have all the makers throwing uncooked spaghetti at the wall, and so many recent Apple headline feature are kinda half-assed (including the other Watch “leaps” like ecg or blood oxygen levels which are just not there yet and might never be)

generalizations 4y ago

Archive: https://archive.ph/JVFBR https://archive.ph/JVFBR

ccooffee 4y ago

This reads like a hit-piece against ZipCar. The author doesn't give any advice, and merely retells a few anecdotes about people being stranded by parking a ZipCar in a place with poor cell service. This isn't a problem I'd thought of before, but with the title "How Not to Go Off the Grid", I some advice. (The author doesn't even seem to offer the somewhat-obvious conclusion of "don't park a ZipCar somewhere without any cell service".)

neonate 4y ago
It doesn't read like a hit piece to me. I doubt most people would think to check their cell phone signal before parking a car.
- alvarezbjm-hn 4y ago
  After reading this, I will be checking car connectivity before renting one. That is, try to get one without connectivity
nicoburns 4y ago
To be fair, this is a pretty bad issue. I've used two other car sharing services, and neither of them had this problem, only requiring cell service only when you picked up the car: - One issued keys which worked independently once activated - The other worked via bluetooth.

andrewflnr 4y ago

Or: don't take your rental car that relies on cell service out of cell range. Was anyone else expecting a story about actually going off the grid, you know, permanently?

Scoundreller 4y ago
This hasn’t happened to me, but I would have thought it was your phone over Bluetooth that unlocked the car after you book it. I don’t 100% know how zipcar operates in each market but I’m guessing these long-distance bookings are pre-booked and you can’t just leave the car in the middle of nowhere. Your phone and the car would only need to phone home at the start of a reservation. I guess the car itself doesn’t have cellular at all and relies on the user’s phone? Could easily run into issues where the user has service but the car does not. Could also see this playing out in underground garages. It’s unclear why the car needs to phone-home for each unlock/start (but no restrictions on operation) within a reservation within its geo-fence. Common sense would be if the car is where you last dropped it off, it should allow you back in within the time of your reservation.
_jal 4y ago
Kind of, but it is the WSJ. Tangent, but it is interesting to me, how many people now seem to be unwilling to go out of cell range. It reminds me of people decades ago who would go camping, but only with a car. If you had to leave powered-travel range, they were out. This is less the case for me now, but there was a time when leaving my cell at home was a huge luxury. And I still enjoy days when I can go do things without it - pretty much the only time anymore when my time is truly my own.
- joshgachnang 4y ago
  We just ran into this for my yearly Boundary Waters canoe trip where cell coverage is spotty at best if you're a couple lakes in. Some of our significant others, especially those who just had or were expecting kids, convinced us to rent a satellite communicator for emergencies. I get it, but part of the experience is being completely disconnected and knowing you're on your own if anything goes wrong.

swader999 4y ago

Going off grid and all the related complexities is quite an interesting thing. Unlike this article.

dang 4y ago
It's amazing how discussions are conditioned by titles. I've changed the title to something more specific now.

ok_dad 4y ago

That "lodge" the 3 girls had to stay in was the Salish Lodge & Spa [0], which is pretty damn expensive. I recognized it from a stay there once, it's a beautiful area, I think it was $300-$400 for the cheap rooms. Hopefully, these companies can figure out a way to prevent this, or to warn the users when they might lose access to the car, or else someday this will be a national news article when a whole family dies in a desert somewhere. [0]: "Salish Lodge & Spa, Railroad Avenue, Snoqualmie, WA 98024"

int_19h 4y ago
Snoqualmie is 4 hours away from Forks by car, but the article says that it took them 45 minutes to drive back to the trailhead next day, so it must've been some other place. The photo in the article is probably from earlier in their roadtrip - if you're driving to the Olympic peninsula from the east, stopping somewhere in the I-90 corridor is natural.
- mikestew 4y ago
  There was also some mention of Rattlesnake Lake, which is in about the same area(ish) of the Salish Lodge, but equally as distant from Forks as Snoqualmie. So I don't know what the whole story is, either. OTOH, the point of the story has nothing to do with their exact location in WA, either. :-)
- tomcam 4y ago
  Confirmed. Live near the falls, have driven to Forks. That’s a 4+ hour trip not 45 minutes.
- ok_dad 4y ago
  The natural area around there had very bad cell service, plus I recognize the little store they made a call from in the article as the little store inside Salish lodge. Plus, it was 45 minutes from the trail where they got picked up by the couple, not 45 minutes from Seattle that they mentioned in the article?
  - 4y ago

doublerabbit 4y ago

I laugh, but then again I recently lost my job a few weeks ago. Thought I would fly home to check-in with my mother and take a sabbatical holiday from the 15 years. I got out of the taxi, hadn't realised that my phone had fallen out of my pocket; ran for the taxi but was too late. The first feeling was anxiety. After accepting that, it was jealously. Walking past all the strangers in the airport on their phone while I wait for my flight with no music proceeded to anger. I wanted to lash out at someone for my own mistake; delayed flight or something would of given me a perfect excuse. However everything went smoothly surprisingly as the flights home are normally delayed. And then after three hours of flight finally acceptance that for the next four weeks I won't have a phone. In these four weeks, I've gotten a interview (tomorrow), surprised my mother as I've never been a museum fan and become really eager to wanting to visit more. Found and finally resolved things about myself and have been reading more books than I have ever of thought. Tonights book was on surrealism. It does have it caveats which really it doesn't. I have gotten in contact with the taxi driver, they being scottish had their line of "enjoy your holiday without the pish of technology". I wanted to be offgrid and I have been. Maybe this is the wine speaking, but back to my book on surrealism which I never ever thought I would be reading. But to do something simple living life for a bit without technology really does wonders, more good than bad. Sounds scary, but eh, I don't want it back. Would recommend.

bee_rider 4y ago
I really enjoyed your comment. I feel like it is vaguely unusual in structure. Typically a story that is dominated by tangents like this will be wheeling off in random directions. This is instead one cohesive story -- a single long tangent -- which is continuously walking away from the original topic, but is somehow linked back by the occasional tenuous connection. That book must have put you in a good writing space.
sixstringtheory 4y ago
I once flew to SF for a weeklong work onsite and realized as I was going through security that I'd left my phone on my bed at home. People at work looked at me like I was an alien, but honestly I had a better time in SF than I ever had before, just organically discovering different things as I walked around (which I always do anyways when I visit cities, much prefer walking to trains, and prefer trains to taxis/cars). Having a good book or two and journal helps alleviate the boredom in a much more fulfilling way. And then just allowing yourself to be bored and sit and think feels good too.

tomohawk 4y ago

We downloaded some shows from netflix before we went off grid so we would have something to watch in case there was some down time. Sure enough, we couldn't watch them. The netflix app needed to phone home before it would allow us to see them.

HideousKojima 4y ago
That's why you sail the seven seas and download them from places other than Netflix
autoexec 4y ago
That's DRM for you. Never trust it. Get a phone with expandable storage and fill your SD card(s) with GBs of non-DRM encumbered media and you can enjoy having it all instantly accessible to you whenever/wherever you want it for as long as you like. Control is what DRM takes from you, but we have the technology to take it back for ourselves.
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y ago
  The 'R' does not stand for "rights" (but I'm sure you know that)
  - merely-unlikely 4y ago
    Not your (the consumer's) rights anyway.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  Or run your own server like emby or plex both have offline access / download for their mobile apps...
  - stavros 4y ago
    Plex offline has never worked for me. It always freezes and never downloads anything. It's astonishing how janky the Plex app is, even after so long.

kkfx 4y ago

Not really much about being "off-grid", only relevant to see how much absurd tech is build and offered... While I'm not off-grid, building my new home I try to reach a certain level of "local backups" to be "off-grid for some time", the real result is that so far all tech is designed to keep a door open to the vendor as much as possible, typically AGAINST formal owner/buyer interests. There is no "really off-grid" solution so far. There is really no protections so far because most of people DO NOT CARE being connected not together, a natural thing being social animals, but to few giants who master all "connections" like shepherds who manage their flocks. Cars? Oh, that's a nice part of the hall of shame: formally BEVs can be really off-grid since POTENTIALLY you can recharge them from local p.v. so virtually having years of limited autonomy. Well... ALL BEVs (and all new cars, in general) I know off are so stuffed of crapware and connected crap including ways to push the user connecting the car to craphones that being off grid for sure means being able to switch planet or perhaps try some far lands in Central Asia, South America or Antarctic... I do not know how much ability to survive in nature we lost while evolving vs how much actual earth is less fertile than the past, but well... I feel that the war to be off-grid in the sense of being a bit autonomous is simply an already lost war like privacy, for mere lack of fighters for the defending front. We can just spend money in expensive potential backups of various kind hoping those who have designed them will not use the big pile of backdoors a day.

m463 4y ago

I'd like to learn how to take my cellular-enabled car off the grid permanently.

csours 4y ago
There may be a fuse you can remove.
grecy 4y ago
Move to the Yukon
andrewia 4y ago
A lot of cars completely disable the modem when service expires (which makes sense since they don't want to pay $5/month to keep it active) which makes your car harder to exploit. But if you want more assurance, it takes less than an hour to unplug the antenna in your car. Look for leaked service manuals, repair videos on YouTube, or search for a replacement module so you can look at diagrams on parts websites. Once you know where it is, you can pry the interior panels and find the module (it should have an IMEI on it). Then find the cellular connector (it's often a standalone coaxial antenna/cable). For example, my Hyundai has cellular connectivity integrated into the head unit. I removed 2 screws to pry off the dashboard trim, removed 2 screws and 2 bolts, and pulled out the head unit (10 minutes). There were multiple coax connectors (such as for the FM antenna and satellite radio), but the cellular module was clearly visible through the ventilation slats so I yanked its connector (5 minutes). I taped the connector to the wiring harness so it doesn't rattle and reassembled everything (10 minutes). Less than 30 minutes overall, not bad for a hardware mod! I'm not against these systems because they offer a lot of convenience for people who need them. Some people need to pre-cool/pre-heat their car when it's parked several blocks away from their home or office, or they need warnings if they absentmindedly leave a window open or a door unlocked. Not to mention you could get to your car quickly and deter a thief if it sends glass break notifications. That's not worth the software vulnerabilities nor $10/month to me, so I disconnect the antenna for peace of mind. But some of my family members are glad to use these features because it improves their QoL. So I'm in favor of legislation that mandates a few years of security updates, and requires that a disable switch will actually disconnect the modem.

gw99 4y ago

I worry when this is an issue for all cars. I think I'm going to buy an old series Land Rover and electric convert it myself if that happens.

chroma 4y ago
This is only an issue for a few kinds of rental vehicles, and I doubt that will be the case for much longer. Teslas work just fine when out of cell range, as they unlock using your phone's bluetooth or an NFC card. If the car is in cell range, you can lock/unlock it remotely using an app on your phone.
- dieselgate 4y ago
  I get the impression parent comment is less concerned about pragmatism and more focused on “freedom of choice”. An EV converted Land Rover would be awesome

FpUser 4y ago

I can't get what drives minds of the morons who introduce the types of "features". My frigging cat knows that mobile service can be unavailable for the whole shebang of the reasons or the phone itself might be non operational.

greggeter 4y ago

seltzered_ 4y ago

This is specifically a Zipcar (multiple vehicle vendors, less car infotainment integration) problem, even happens in urban garages. Similar article written about this a year or two ago. Reachnow (BMW based) when it was around solved the issue by having a pin code you enter, Car2Go (Mercedes based) probably also did I think. Here's the other hn post from 3 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20873234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20873234 , and my more detailed comment from then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20884046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20884046

badwolf 4y ago
Car2Go just allowed you to take the key with you during stopovers, so you don't have to deal with that.
gamegoblin 4y ago
Also, GIG Car Share will mail users an RFID card free of charge to solve this problem: https://gigcarshare.com/gig-card/ https://gigcarshare.com/gig-card/
- gammarator 4y ago
  You have to watch out though, if you hold the card to the reader too long it will end your (perhaps prepaid, multi-day) reservation.
- dieselgate 4y ago
  The gig card never worked for me in Seattle, not sure why but always needed to use the app to unlock. The card was one of the in theory “best parts” of Gig for me but oh well. Haven’t needed or used the service in over a year
kotaKat 4y ago
The weird thing is I was told in the past that Zipcar's telematics module would retain the last 'active' card when it's out of cell coverage, plus has a fixed set of 'local' cards programmed to it (eg, for fleet service). There is also typically a 'local' card available in situations like parking garages where the Zipcar is valeted up and away from the public. It'll always start the vehicle session, signal or no.

asiachick 4y ago

I don't know of a solution but ... it makes me think of all the quick rental bikes in the city. The moment they lose power/wifi no one can use any bikes. Maybe that's ok since you're likely only going a few km But it reminds me of vending machines in Japan. If I understand correctly they're set supposed to allow dispensing in the event of an earthquake. Of course Japanese society has less petty theft and vandalism which is why they can have the vending machines in the first place.

alistairSH 4y ago
Why would the solution be the physical key, stored in a lockbox (inside glovebox, perhaps). Initial unlock with phone, then use physical key, then use phone to lock at end of rental.

bijansf 4y ago

As a Zip Car user, it sure is a serious PITA...and sometimes worse than range anxiety...

diebeforei485 4y ago

Zipcar sent me a "zipcard" (a credit card sized card with an RFID chip) that I keep in my wallet. I find app unlock to be convenient but it doesn't work everywhere.

cammikebrown 4y ago
The article mentions the cards wouldn’t work, either.
- diebeforei485 4y ago
  My experience having used Zipcar for 7+ years is that if you hold the card up to the reader for ~15 seconds, it unlocks even in areas with no connection.
willnonya 4y ago
I generally find using an app to unlock a car less convenient than a key. I think the use cases where the reverse seems true are pretty subjective at best. Or maybe I just grew up before cell phones ruled the world...
- diebeforei485 4y ago
  For distributed rental cars this creates a key collect and return problem. The whole point of zipcar is cars in your neighborhood that you can book, walk to, unlock, and go.
- dieselgate 4y ago
  I agree with you completely. It seems likely companies prefer app lock/unlock because it scales better, faster, cheaper. car shares are advertised as “download the app then drive”

0xbadcafebee 4y ago

Anyone know what the backend protocol is for those ZipCar mobile connections? Now I'm curious if anyone's tried hacking the cars by GSM spoofing. I usually do rentals for $35-$65 a day and have them for 24 hours + unlimited miles. Zipcar starts at $11/hr (more for bigger cars), with $90/year subscription, and up to $104/day, limited to 180 miles.

_s 4y ago

I've been a member of ZipCar for well over a decade, from when they first came to London and issued the plastic NFC cards. Then it was the smaller ones that could attach to a keyring, and for the past 5 or so years - just the mobile app. This is very anecdotal, but I never really had any issues - even more so, the last ZipCar hire I did took me from downtown SF to the Muir Woods (no cell reception at all). I had no issues locking / unlocking the car during the trip - I'm fairly certain it uses bluetooth for the connection between app and car; but likely needs data for starting or ending a trip.

wutbrodo 4y ago
I remember having issues with locking when going to Muir Woods, though I don't remember the details. I think one time years ago I just left it unlocked for our whole home (not my most responsible move)
dieselgate 4y ago
The most surprising part of this to me is finding parking at Muir Woods!