Keyless vehicle entry is nothing new. The concept dates back to 1980, when carmaker Ford added five-button keypads to various car models, including the Mercury Cougar, the Lincoln Continental, the Lincoln Town Car and the Ford Thunderbird. I was 12 years old at the time, and I remember one of my cousins being mind-blown by the idea of unlocking his dad’s car without a key. He thought this was the coolest thing he’d ever seen.
Nissan added a similar system a few years later, followed by other manufacturers, with General Motors making keyless entry technology readily available to U.S. drivers by the end of the 1980s. I was in college at the time and unable to afford a car, so I wasn’t overly affected yet, though my wife and I have had vehicles with keyless entry and start functions for years now. Every morning during the winter, in fact, my wife walks over to our living room window and warms up her car for the long commute to work without having to walk outside. Like I said, the concept is nothing new.
What is new is the idea of accomplishing this using ultra-wideband (UWB) and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technologies. The ubiquity of smartphones has allowed drivers to lock, unlock and start their cars using phone apps, but Apple has taken the concept a step further by introducing Apple CarKey, which provides digital keys based on its iOS 15 operating system that utilize BLE and UWB to allow vehicle owners to operate cars remotely. In January of this year, BMW was among the first manufacturers to embrace the technology (see BMW Adds UWB to Digital Car Keys).
This month, Apple announced plans to add digital key and digital identification options to iOS 15, as well as to the Apple Watch’s watchOS 8 platform. The digital keys employ UWB and BLE, using a device’s U1 chip (the UWB module built into the iPhone and Apple Watch that enables detailed spatial awareness) and secure element (a tamper-proof microprocessor chip) to generate what the company calls “session-specific UWB ranging keys” and thus enable keyless entry and starting for vehicle operators. As with Apple Pay, the digital keys will be stored in users’ Apple Wallet.
This past week, Apple posted a video from WWDC21 explaining how to create digital car keys that support UWB technology so drivers can unlock and start their cars without having to remove their phones from a bag or pocket, or even touch their Apple Watch. This video—which follows up on a prior presentation from WWDC20 that first introduced Apple’s digital keys—shows how companies can integrate UWB, add proximity actions and distance-unlock features, and help users personalize vehicle settings by identifying which key is used on a car’s driver-side door.
The presenter in this latest video outlines the basics of pairing, key management and server actions. According to the presentation, Apple CarKey utilizes NFC to authenticate a person’s device and vehicle. Simply put, the car unlocks automatically if it recognizes a driver’s iPhone, then starts automatically once the phone is inside the vehicle, even if it’s still in a person’s bag or pocket, thanks to the precise location information afforded by the NFC component.
The potential uses for CarKey don’t stop at locking, unlocking and starting cars, however. Users can authorize others to borrow and operate their vehicle by sending them a digital key, as well as restrict activities (with teenage drivers, for instance) by imposing a maximum allowable speed limit or stereo volume. The digital keys will be sharable via Apple’s iMessage service, and anyone who loses their phone will be able to cancel the keys via iCloud in order to prevent unauthorized parties from accessing their vehicle. So the system won’t just make driving easier—it will help to protect cars from theft.
PocketLint editor Chris Hall provided more details about this technology in a recent article (see What Is Apple CarKey and How Will It Revolutionise Driving?). From what Hall describes, it sounds like Apple is driving automotive innovation in a whole new direction. I’ve lost touch with my cousin since my childhood, but I can only imagine what he’d make of this latest development. He’d probably call it the coolest thing he’s ever seen.
Rich Handley has been the managing editor of RFID Journal since 2005. Outside the RFID world, Rich has authored, edited or contributed to numerous books about pop culture.