TheSeg
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Seg
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2020
- Threads
- 9
- Messages
- 284
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- 646
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area, CA
- Website
- seg.fyi
- Vehicles
- 2021 Mach-E Premium EB-RWD (Built: Feb 2021)
If I'm correct, the MY2021 Mach-E doesn't need new hardware to support v3 of Digital Keys.The Car Key is pretty bad right now (I have a MY21 5er BMW with it), but in future with the UWB-support it will actually do something.
It will work like all the Bluetooth-app salesmen hoped their implementation would.
So let’s hope Ford release a car with it in the future.
The current Car Key standard (v. 2) is exclusively NFC, which is very near (touch the car in the right spot) to make it work. Spec 3.0 adds not only UWB, but Bluetooth-LE. B-LE does the authentication dance, while UWB simply allows the car the ability to pinpoint exactly where the phone is.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but B-LE alone is what runs FordPass / PaaK. If B-LE alone is allowed (which the docs I read seem to allow), then we could get Apple/Android Car Keys in feature parity to what PaaK currently offers.
The spatial awareness of UWB would allow more narrow area of influence. Right now with PaaK, we have "unlock near the car and guess the profile". UWB would allow "unlock when near the driver's door and use the profile associated to device that entered the driver's door". Neat to have, but not a deal breaker.
We still get current PaaK functionality using our phone and watches. Even when either device is out of power.
This would change the development of FordPass to be an interface with the OS level API, rather than the App running all operations. Resulting in less engineering to maintain a better customer experience. The real question is: Will the teams at @Ford Motor Company have the permission and the gumption to do it? Are they working on this for when iOS 15 and/or Android 12 drops?
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