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posted by martyb on Tuesday December 14 2021, @11:02AM   Printer-friendly
from the send-out-your-kid dept.

Toyota owners have to pay $8/mo to keep using their key fob for remote start

Automakers keep trying to get a piece of that sweet, sweet subscription income. Now, it's Toyota's turn.

Nearly every car company offers some sort of subscription package, and Toyota has one called Remote Connect. The service offers the usual fare, letting owners use an app to remotely lock their doors, for example, or if they own a plug-in vehicle, to precondition the interior. But as some complimentary subscriptions for Remote Connect come to an end, Toyota owners are getting an unexpected surprise—they can no longer use their key fob to remote-start their vehicles.

In terms of technology, this remote-start feature is no different from using the fob to unlock the car. The fobs use a short-range radio transmitter to send the car a signal that is encrypted with rolling codes. The car then decrypts the signal and performs the requested action, whether it's to lock or unlock the doors, beep the horn, or start the engine. RF key fobs have been around since the 1980s, and GM added a factory-installed remote-start option in 2004 (no subscription needed).

Key fob remote start has nothing to do with an app, nor does the car or the fob communicate with any servers managed by Toyota.

Toyota has been offering factory-installed remote start on 2018 and newer vehicles equipped with Audio Plus or Premium Audio. To use it, owners have to be within 50 feet of the vehicle and double-press the fob's lock button before holding the lock button down for a few seconds.

Yet recently, as 2018 Toyotas have passed their third birthday, owners have been discovering that the fob's functionality is dependent on maintaining an active Remote Connect subscription. Vehicles equipped with Audio Plus receive a free three-year "trial," while Premium Audio vehicles receive 10 years. Once those subscriptions expire, though, the key fob remote start stops working. Toyota didn't change the rules, though that detail was buried in the fine print. When the time comes, Toyota simply cuts off access to one of the functions on the key fob already in the owner's possession. To get the feature back, owners have to pony up $8 per month or $80 per year.


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 14 2021, @11:35AM (13 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 14 2021, @11:35AM (#1204924)

    Key fob remote start has nothing to do with an app, nor does the car or the fob communicate with any servers managed by Toyota.

    So, how do they enable/disable this feature, if there is no calling home?

    To use it, owners have to be within 50 feet of the vehicle and double-press the fob's lock button before holding the lock button down for a few seconds.

    Seems slower than a normal remote key. For my car I just need to press the button once and the car unlocks within 1 second (almost instantly). Even using a normal key seems faster than this.

    To get the feature back, owners have to pony up $8 per month or $80 per year.

    So, that's Toyotas price for laziness.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 14 2021, @11:41AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 14 2021, @11:41AM (#1204925)

    I'm betting they're lying. That's how. You show me a system that doesn't ultimately connect with their servers, either via a cell modem, or a dealer interface...

    Otherwise, how could they disable it if you already have it active, unless it always had a ticking time bomb in it.

    Physics requires some communication in order to enforce this. Marketing are liars.

    • (Score: 5, Funny) by FatPhil on Tuesday December 14 2021, @11:59AM (2 children)

      by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Tuesday December 14 2021, @11:59AM (#1204928) Homepage
      Maybe they're using a system which connects to a highty trustworthy third party server run by Uncle Akhmed in Turkmenistan?
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday December 14 2021, @05:04PM (1 child)

        by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Tuesday December 14 2021, @05:04PM (#1205007) Homepage
        How is highlighting the to-me-bloody-obvious weasel wording in "communicate with any servers managed by Toyota" a troll?
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 14 2021, @06:51PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 14 2021, @06:51PM (#1205037)

          There are a few human trolls lurking around that mod random posts as -1 Troll for the hell of it.
          I guess these mods are trolling themselves?

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by drussell on Tuesday December 14 2021, @11:59AM

      by drussell (2678) on Tuesday December 14 2021, @11:59AM (#1204929) Journal

      Anything Toyota that is 2018 or newer is supposedly already set to expire at some various future point, just none of those have actually disabled yet.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 14 2021, @12:17PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 14 2021, @12:17PM (#1204932)

      Pushed OTA firmware update signed with their private key?

      Then, the car technically doesn't have to phone home, it just has to always choke down whatever code Toyota signs and *casts to your car.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Fnord666 on Tuesday December 14 2021, @01:47PM (2 children)

    by Fnord666 (652) on Tuesday December 14 2021, @01:47PM (#1204954) Homepage

    Key fob remote start has nothing to do with an app, nor does the car or the fob communicate with any servers managed by Toyota.

    So, how do they enable/disable this feature, if there is no calling home?

    To use it, owners have to be within 50 feet of the vehicle and double-press the fob's lock button before holding the lock button down for a few seconds.

    Seems slower than a normal remote key. For my car I just need to press the button once and the car unlocks within 1 second (almost instantly). Even using a normal key seems faster than this.

    To get the feature back, owners have to pony up $8 per month or $80 per year.

    So, that's Toyotas price for laziness.

    I suspect that the author means that the system does not use or go through a remote server in order to use the key fob remote start feature. Presumably the car's control system does receive updates from time to time from Toyota, either through the dealership or OTA. This is likely when Toyota sends an update package to disable that feature if you haven't paid up.

    Hopefully they send the "disable that feature" code only once and someone can hack the signal, reverse engineer it, and re-enable the feature for people. Given automaker's typical security practices, it may even be possible to just perform a replay attack to re-enable the feature.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by FatPhil on Tuesday December 14 2021, @05:10PM (1 child)

      by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Tuesday December 14 2021, @05:10PM (#1205009) Homepage
      From a legal CYA perspective, it's more sensible to have it as a canary. It's disabled when they stop updating the firmware with an image containing a "still keep it enabled" code. That way, none of their actions are "disabling", as it's always been disabled, just after a rolling delay. If they've decided to go down this path at all, they'll have planned it in advance, which would include getting the legal CYA team in.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Tuesday December 14 2021, @06:22PM

        by Fnord666 (652) on Tuesday December 14 2021, @06:22PM (#1205031) Homepage

        From a legal CYA perspective, it's more sensible to have it as a canary. It's disabled when they stop updating the firmware with an image containing a "still keep it enabled" code. That way, none of their actions are "disabling", as it's always been disabled, just after a rolling delay. If they've decided to go down this path at all, they'll have planned it in advance, which would include getting the legal CYA team in.

        That's an interesting idea and I wonder if someone will take the trouble to sue them over this just to find out the details during the discovery process?

  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 14 2021, @08:41PM (1 child)

    by sjames (2882) on Tuesday December 14 2021, @08:41PM (#1205096) Journal

    Using the feature doesn't require phoning home. Of course, the car does occasionally phone home and that's when they set the configuration bit that tells the car to ignore a remote start signal. If/when you pay the ransom, they clear the disable bit remotely.

    This, boys and girls, is why products that phone home are bad.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by FatPhil on Wednesday December 15 2021, @12:54AM

      by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Wednesday December 15 2021, @12:54AM (#1205163) Homepage
      Ones that are designed to rely on phoning 3rd party servers are usually worse. That requires 6 trust relations, unlike the normal 2.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 15 2021, @06:19AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 15 2021, @06:19AM (#1205233)

    Key fob remote start has nothing to do with an app, nor does the car or the fob communicate with any servers managed by Toyota.

    So, how do they enable/disable this feature, if there is no calling home?

    What I want to know is how do they handle driving the vehicle to some sort of remote location that does not have any cell service. Is the vehicle effectively disabled out in the remote hinterlands? What if you cross international borders? Will the car work if it is driven to Canada? Mexico? What if you relocate to Central/South America or Europe and take the car with you? Will the car still work outside the borders of the USA?

    Also, my previous car was a Nissan Altima. It had one of these keyless fobs. It wasn't on some crappy subscription service but the keyless fob still sucked dead toads!!!

    • (Score: 1) by mce on Wednesday December 15 2021, @11:40AM

      by mce (2811) on Wednesday December 15 2021, @11:40AM (#1205267)

      Keyless fobs really do not need a cell network to work. They talk directly to the car using short range technology. The scenarios you describe are some of the reasons (but not all - think also about energy consumption and battery life) why things are done this way. Car OEMs don't want to be bothered with support calls just because a car can't be started due to lack of a cell phone network. They also don't want to be bothered with bad press about people dying in the desert or in another country because their car wouldn't start for no "good" reason.

      As an aside, note that a driver not having coverage is not the same as the car not having coverage. Any modern car most certainly does have the capability to phone home - or be phoned from home - even if/when the driver is not carrying any phone at all. The car has a phone with (soldered) SIM card built in. That SIM for sure is such that it will still have coverage when it ends up outside the car's native country - as long as there is "any" network at all, that is. So maybe not hundreds of miles into a desert or rain forest, but that's another topic, and - as said - is one of the reasons key fobs don't depend on cell coverage.

      Warning: I used to work for the company that developed most of the the core technology behind keyless fobs. I also used to work for that and other companies that developed cell phone modules for automotive use. So I might know a few things for real for once... :-)