Bosch wants your smartphone to be your car key thanks to Perfectly Keyless

Looking back, car keys have gone from being an important but simple element of our car to almost “mini” computers. An example of this is the remote with which we can control several elements from the same device BMW. But the use of the key as such is gradually disappearing, as more and more models incorporate the Keyless system as standard or optionally, with which we can unlock and start the car just by having the key itself within a certain minimum distance.

Aiming at this latter option, Bosch intends for you to forget about your car keys, using for this something that is found today in the pocket of practically everyone: our smartphone. Its operating system is practically similar to the Keyless system we already know: once we approach our car, it detects our smartphone, “et voilà”: our car will unlock, allow us to start it and, once the journey is over, lock it.

To use Perfectly Keyless, the name chosen by Bosch for its system, a control unit and proximity sensors will need to be installed in the vehicles, while on our smartphones we will download an APP that we will later connect with our vehicle and, once we have completed this last step, a unique virtual security key will be generated for each unit. From here, if the sensors detect that we are approaching, when we are less than two meters away the car will unlock and, conversely, lock; once inside, simply by having our smartphone on us, we only need to press the Start/Stop button to start it.

Perfectly Keyless also allows us to lend our car without having to leave the physical keys or our code, simply by generating another individual security key, which is then sent to the other user’s smartphone so they can use our car. This is really useful when we lend our car to friends or family, and even more so for car rental companies or “carsharing”, as they can manage all the keys from the application or even block access in case something happens.

But now comes the key point that users are probably most concerned about: security. What happens if we lose our smartphone and with it our digital key? It’s not a pleasant thought that on top of losing our smartphone, someone could also get into and/or steal the car, so we can deactivate our key, blocking access for both authorized persons and third parties. Once we have a new smartphone we can pair it again, and in the meantime we can use the conventional keys without any problem.