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

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

#231

Post by SavantIdiot »

alkonaut wrote: post #198
SavantIdiot wrote: post #166

I consider this a totally unnecessary thing. When they start charging to start my car, then we've got a problem. However, I do resent them inflating the base price by putting more unwanted h/w into the base model only to be activated as SaaS. EDIT: Snark removal.

> Totally unnecessary thing only kids do. I use remote start when it's really cold. I thought that was the whole point of the feature (When the regular gasoline heater isn't enough, it can also run itself warm for a few minutes).

Snark has been removed from original post.

But I look at it as unnecessary feature creep, just more stuff to break. It's like they mastered making cars reliable (if cared for), and now the industry giants want to undo that but tacking on tons of "hey, what about this?" gadgets. Just run out to your car and start it: costs you 30 seconds and some precipitation on your collar?

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

#232

Post by [deleted] »

beeboop wrote: post #226
jmiserez wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of model it's a good idea to put a emergency hammer / glass breaker in your car. (addendum: also to rescue someone else, not blaming the driver)

If your headrests can be removed, the metal poles in them work well for this too. You jab one of the poles into the window seal, then pry like a crowbar. If done in the corner of the window it will break easily.

[deleted]

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

#233

Post by matthewdgreen »

moooo99 wrote: post #179
matthewdgreen wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$8/mo is genuinely a lot of money for this kind of infrastructure, even if there are developers and servers to be paid for. Assume that there are only 100,000 users. This would imply $9.6M per year in revenue to cover infrastructure and dev salaries for a system that handles ~2 queries/day/customer! And 100,000 is a very small number. Presumably Toyota has millions of customers. If you think that's reasonable, consid…

Toyota wouldn't be doing it to cover costs, it would be there to generate profits. I wouldn't even mind if the app is good. We have a BMW with connected drive, the connectivity included is basically useless. It has a latency of around 2-3 minutes, depending on your cell signal. The price of a service rarely does reflect the actual cost of providing the service, especially with SaaS margins. And $8/mo is not a whole l…

Yes, I understand that people will charge what the market will bear, and in this case Toyota has decided they can charge a lot -- because you bought the car and now they have you at their mercy. I was responding to the GP poster who explicitly justified it by the cost of operating the service.

This might not be a big deal if Toyota was the only company contemplating this business model (what's $8/mo, after all?) but I doubt they will be. If every product in your life adds a "small" subscription fee (calculated at 50-1000x actual service costs), things are going to get painful very quickly.

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

#234

Post by errcorrectcode »

jasonpeacock wrote: post #194
silisili wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what, do Corvettes not just unlock and open when you pull the handle? Every vehicle I've ever owned, from the 80s to now, manual or electric lock, the front doors both open when the handle is pulled, locked or not. If this isn't the case, I'm almost inclined to consider that criminally negligent.

In my 2021 Honda CR-V this is a configurable option - you can decide which behavior you want. For example, you don't want your kids to open the doors while you're driving. Or you don't want a car-jacker to reach through the window and open your door.

Child locks are usually different. Also, there is typically no child lock option for the driver's side front door.

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

#235

Post by alkonaut »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #231
alkonaut wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Totally unnecessary thing only kids do. I use remote start when it's really cold. I thought that was the whole point of the feature (When the regular gasoline heater isn't enough, it can also run itself warm for a few minutes).

Snark has been removed from original post. But I look at it as unnecessary feature creep, just more stuff to break. It's like they mastered making cars reliable (if cared for), and now the industry giants want to undo that but tacking on tons of "hey, what about this?" gadgets. Just run out to your car and start it: costs you 30 seconds and some precipitation on your collar?

It breaks in a robust way. Like an escalator. If it breaks, it just becomes that run-out-and-start.

If it costs next to nothing then it's a good feature. It's like the remote for my TV. Sure I can get up and change channels, or I can walk and start the car. but chances are I'm gonna say "nah" and just cold start it. I'm not paying $8 month but I do pay $40/yr for the volvo version (although that has a bit more than just remote start. I use the remote heater start 100x times more than remote start though).

I mean if the heater is remote started then why wouldn't the engine be. It's just the 2nd step of the heating process.

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

#236

Post by LeifCarrotson »

silisili wrote: post #178
phkahler wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of this tragic but true story about a man and his dog that died in a Corvette because the door failed to open electronically. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/06/11/te... If your car door uses electricity to open, you best know what to do when that system fails. Death should not occur due to failure to RTFM for a door.

Wait what, do Corvettes not just unlock and open when you pull the handle? Every vehicle I've ever owned, from the 80s to now, manual or electric lock, the front doors both open when the handle is pulled, locked or not. If this isn't the case, I'm almost inclined to consider that criminally negligent.

> the front doors both open when the handle is pulled, locked or not

The fact that the front doors both unlock when a single handle is pulled is because there's an electronic sensor and solenoid that unlocks everything when one handle is opened.

I had a Pontiac Vibe (really a Toyota Matrix) that had a cable in the door unlock assembly fail. You could open the door from the outside - the external door handle was physically the same part as the latch mechanism - but the external handle was back by your shoulder, while the internal handle was forward by the mirror and connected to the latch by a steel cable swaged to some aluminum pins; that connection eventually failed and the internal door handle flapped impotently.

I spent an embarrassing amount of time ignoring the problem and instead rolling down the window to open the door...

Regardless, it's not that much of a stretch to imagine that an automotive engineer might decide to replace cable actuator with a wire and solenoid.

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

#237

Post by errcorrectcode »

jmiserez wrote: post #185
phkahler wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of this tragic but true story about a man and his dog that died in a Corvette because the door failed to open electronically. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/06/11/te... If your car door uses electricity to open, you best know what to do when that system fails. Death should not occur due to failure to RTFM for a door.

Regardless of model it's a good idea to put a emergency hammer / glass breaker in your car. (addendum: also to rescue someone else, not blaming the driver)

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=rescue+hammer

A quality rolling ballpoint pen would also work (given enough force) because it contains a small ball of tungsten carbide.

My knife also has a tungsten carbide window breaker on the base of it.

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

#238

Post by phist_mcgee »

NotPractical wrote: post #113
Y_Y wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can do better than a link to a Reddit thread with a screenshot of some text. I found this on GameFAQs slightly modified from the original and posted the day after, on 2013-06-16. -2018 -wake up feeling sick after a late night of playing vidya -excited to play some halo 2k19 -"xbox on" -... -"XBOX ON" -"Please verify that you are "annon332" by saying "Doritos™ Dew™ it right!" -"Doritos™ Dew™ it right" -"ERROR! Plea…

Does this content really have a place on here?

Humor is an effective medium for exchanging ideas and concepts. I would say satire in small doses is perfect for HN.

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

#239

Post by mavhc »

jodrellblank wrote: post #116
mavhc wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just don't connect them to the internet, now you have a TV that's cheaper than it should be because they expect to show you ads, but they can't

Won’t be long before they have 5G chips in and that isn’t your choice anymore. Kindles have done that since 3G, cars have started doing that, Tesla trains AI on all owner driving data, VW new electric (ID3?) will be their first with a mandatory perma HQ connection, IIRC.

Kindle with 3G was great, free internet globally. Never once showed me an ad, and most Kindles didn't have it.

When that day comes buy a monitor, or hack the firmware.

You can always break off the aerial.

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

#240

Post by mdp2021 »

dharmab wrote: post #44
dls2016 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar: Libertarian Police Department https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertari...

Also, Private Police by Fry and Laurie https://youtu.be/vLfghLQE3F4

In the sketch, the "client" states that he called the police and all he could get was on-hold music.

I am afraid one can inform the international public: in some countries, this is exactly what happens, since years.

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