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Does this also connect to the CAN Bus, if so will you offer a simple high level API to it. I would buy one now if it did. Background: I showed Lockitron to my
by dmmalam 14y ago
Does this also connect to the CAN Bus, if so will you offer a simple high level API to it. I would buy one now if it did.
Background: I showed Lockitron to my dad a while back, and he wanted it for his car. ie unlock/lock from his phone, or even by just walking up, like keyless-go on the mercs.
I did a bit of googleling, and it seemed like it should be pretty simple. Connect a dongle to the diagnostic port (inc CAN bus wires), and then fire the correct CAN messages down. On most modern cars you can pretty much control anything, from the locks, cruise control, windows, seats, radio, lights, wipers etc. The problem is the CAN message format isn't documented anywhere, and it varies from car to car. You would have to sniff bus, with lots of trial & error.
If there was a high level API, ie openDriverSideWindow(), I could image the community creating a whole host of automation possibilities. ie Open windows when the temp is above 30C, or turn radio down when I'm close to home.
- mseebach 14y ago> unlock/lock from his phone Liability hell.
- umsm 14y agoIt depends on the driver and the area you're from. In front of my home, I rarely lock my car.
- mseebach 14y agoNo, it depends on who you can blame (and sue) if someone steals your car.
- stcredzero 14y agoDepending on the jurisdiction, you could be liable for stuff that happens if someone steals your unlocked car.
- jessaustin 14y agoIf this is a common thing, how does the party holding you liable typically show that the car was unlocked?
- stcredzero 14y agoUsually a confession by the perp, and/or by the owner. It's not unusual at all for people not to know the details of the law like this and blurt out factoids, and for there to be harsh but difficult to enforce laws in the US.
- jessaustin 14y agoI'd expect a "confession" by one who stole a car to be worth very little in a civil action by a third party against the owner of that car.
- stcredzero 14y agoIf the "confession" is from a known car thief, sure. If from a neighborhood kid with an otherwise clean record, then not so much.
- dmmalam 14y agoSame as Lockitron / Tesla. I supposed you would have to tell your insurance company, and they would have to OK it. I could image it being even safer with remote disable functionality like the iphone, or use it as a way to get home if you lost your keys.
- msabalau 14y agoWorse liability than "Automatic Calls for Help in a Crash"? Which is a great idea, it just surprised me that they'd be willing to go there for a $70 device, even with the appropriate disclaimers.
- sksksk 14y agoAt my employer (a car sharing company) we do have this API (for internal use only) and it is extremely fun to use. When you realise that you can just send commands to a car and get it to do things, the possibilities you can think up are incredible
- cyanbane 14y agoScary thinking about the fact that if there is a billing dispute or anything to that nature, for connected cars in the near future, someone could just turn a car off at whim for a driver. I would hope there is a high regulatory wall formed in the years to come if you want to disable a person's car remotely.
- Karunamon 14y agoThere's something like this already for used car dealerships who lease to high risk customers. A device is installed with a keypad in the compartment. The dealer programs it with a payment schedule and a time. Each time you make your payment, you get a new code and punch it in. If you fail to make a payment on time, car won't start. Some of them even have GPS to assist with reposession.. scary little devices. http://www.passtimeusa.com/products/products http://www.passtimeusa.com/products/products
- Too 14y agoAttempting to control process parameters in your car with undocumented features by trial and error? Highly advice against it. Who knows what can happen, you might even accidentally send accelerator pedal request. On the systems I've worked on you can absolutely not control the cruise control by externally firing CAN messages onto the wire. Sure, the engine would probably respond to them but it would also respond to the real messages being sent from the ecu in charge milliseconds later, causing very jerky response. You could also cause the cruise to activate at standstill or other non allowed conditions since those conditions aren't necessarily located in the engine ecu. Something that looks like a valid parameter on the bus, by simple sniffing and correlation, might not be what you think it is either. It might sound strange but it's actually very common for a signal in a message to bounce through several devices before it is considered valid and is picked up by the receiver. For example the first device might output the raw sensor data almost straight from the A/D-converter, the second device applies an LP-filter on it and sends it in another message, a third ecu applies some condition on the signal and forwards it differently if those conditions are valid and finally a fourth ecu is used just as gateway to transform the signal into another can-message because the receiving device is from a third party that doesn't support the standard message format for that parameter type. And I haven't even mentioned gateway between multiple can-networks yet. Even with system documentation it can be hard to know what a signals does.
- miahi 14y agoSome cars expose a CAN bus through the diagnostic port, but reject commands like these coming from that port, probably for security and safety reasons. You have to get to the "internal" bus to be able to do this kind of hack.