So yesterday we raised the question as to the value of remote starting your car and you know what, people who live where it gets PDC (pretty damn cold) love it while people who live were it never gets above nippy didn’t really see the value. I’m certainly glad we got to the bottom of that question for the ages, now let’s get to another one.
Since many of you made a strong case for remote starting, what we’d like to know today is what else you’d like your car to do when you don’t actually have to be in its immediate presence. Some cars will raise or lower their tops and windows at the press of a keyfob button, while others will – quite remarkably – activate the door locks. Those are common actions, and ones that you are no doubt taking advantage of as we speak. But what about the unrealized conveniences? What else do you wish your car could do by remote control?
Image: automationgame
Hooniverse Asks: What Do You Wish You Could Do to Your Car by Remote Control?
By Robert Emslie
Sep 3, 2015
Kamil Kaluski 
Jeff Glucker
Send it away to park itself, and summon it. My least favorite driving chore is winding slowly through the parking garage every morning and afternoon in search of an open spot. Thankfully, this tech already exists, and merely awaits maturity and economies of scale to become a daily reality. It will be fantastic. I just need to approximately double my salary so I can afford a new car.
Also, I just realized that they who penned the design for the fourth-generation Nissan Quest borrowed heavily from the Gadgetmobile in van mode.
And sports car mode? That’s a Bricklin SV-1.
You have so many cars that you have a parking garage to wind through? Oh, my derp.
I’m about as far away from a parking garage full of my own cars as can be. I paid approximately as much for my W126 as I did for my last laptop, and it’s street parked.
I wish I could add favorite destinations to the navigation system remotely. I rotate company cars fairly frequently (woe is me) and the down side is having to go in and program the destinations. This is especially cumbersome now that Waze showed me how easy it COULD be.
If they used Google Maps, they probably could.
That’s why a refined version of the pioneer appradio would be perfect. The Parrot Asteroid seems cool, the Parrot RNB6 is fucking black magic. Too bad it will be manufacturer only. I guess that’s actually a plus when talking about company cars.
Bonus: now all your colleagues know where you live (assuming they mindlessly punched “home” on the GPS and followed the directions).
That’s cool. I got plenty of beer.
Remote-auto-clean. Jepp. I could live with that.
I was thinking of a remote vacuum. Press a button and the windows go down and hidden air jets blast the dust and debris out of the car.
I could make decent money on the side if I had an advertising-mobile that would go putter around on its own while I’m sitting here at work (on Hooniverse).
http://www.network2media.com/images/stories/September2010/week1-1-5/3September2010/mobile-billboard-truck-1.jpg
So you’d give it a side job. Good idea. I bet billboards are less likely to puke in the back seat than Uber passengers.
It’s against all good senses that a setup like the one above can be worth its money…wow. I support your idea though.
Roll all the windows down. My mother-in-law’s first Lexus (2005 ES330) had this feature, but it required the key. You put the key in, turned it to unlock, and then held it, and all four windows rolled down. Handy on hot days, to release the hot air before turning on the a/c.
Now that I have a sunroof on the Kizashi (my first ever, woot!), I can see how nice it’d be to remotely open it for a few minutes before getting in — hot air rising and all that…
This is among my favorite feature of our Ody during the summer. Press and hold the unlock button on the fob, and the windows roll down as long as you hold the button. Get in, start the A/C, and as soon as it starts blowing cold, roll the windows up. It helps get the temperature inside the vehicle down closer to ambient instead of the 130+F it can get to in the sun on an asphalt parking lot, so the interior is cooler, faster.
You could do this with the right sequence of pushing the unlock button of my 2010 Challenger’s fob (all two of the windows that could roll down) but it was tricky. The 2015 doesn’t have it though.
My 2014 BMW 5 Series can roll down the windows and open the sunroof using the key fob, up to about 25 feet from the ca, but more importantly, it can turn the vent fan system on using an iPhone App. It can be done either on a scheduled basis or ad hoc. It can take more than 45 seconds though so, it’s not an instant fix.
In the thread mentioned above, we talked about an auto-window-mirroring, reflecting the light that usually warms up a car beyond touch when parked in the hot summer sun. I’d love a function like that. It could reduce the heat stored in the car greatly.
http://www.cars101.com/subaru/legacy/Leg07sedantrunk5.JPG
I would love to have a remote button for folding the rear seat forward. You’re leaving Lowe’s or Target with a big, bulky item, and you realize that your going to have stop and open both rear doors to fold the seat forward into cargo mode…
That would be awesome as a threat to a misbehaving peanut gallery. Especially if you didn’t even have to pull over.
Folding the entire seatback is overkill. Instead, use Volvo’s electronic smack-in-the-back-of-the-head device: http://www.volvo-forums.com/t8022-folding-headrests.htm
I have kids, therefore I often find that they have moved or touched something in the car that i wasn’t aware of. Rather than go out to the car, I want a buttons on the fob to do the following:
-Windows up/down.
-All lights on/off
-Exterior lights on, but not tied to lock/unlock (for when I am looking for a dropped toy in the dark and need them to stay on longer than the 15 secs with the unlock.)
I realize my fob is now going to be gigantic and confusing, so maybe just give me a sequence for this.
Hold unlock for all widows down, hold lock to close all. All lights on, hit the rear hatch open button 3 times (you have to hold it to get the hatch to go)
All lights on/off 3 times on the panic button (again, you have to hold the panic to have it go off)
Just my $0.02
A “window vent” button/function. I can’t leave my windows cracked all day on hot days (it get dusty here), but if I could crack them about fifteen minutes before I walked out of the office, that would rule.
I think you want a Saab with comfort open/close depending on how far your office is from where you park.
I think I just want a Saab in general.
For the Mustang- just drive down the street.
Seeing as how I won’t let anyone drive my car, I don’t get to enjoy the sweetness of it rumbling by…
Drive slowly past buildings with mirrored glass.
Or through a long tunnel with the windows down.
Rust repair.
Says the Alfa man, aptly.
Ironically, the Alfa is rust free. It’s the Dodge, Ford and VW that need it.
Is that really a good idea?
This is one of the best scenes of the movie.
I wish Molly could do that. without the murderous side effects of course
Millenial B5 A4’s and Passats had the press to open window feature on the remote in the Euro market but not the US market. Presumably they were afraid of lawsuits from someone who sat on their remote on a rainy day. I knew several people who had friends with laptops and VAG software enable that for them. I never wanted it badly enough. I figured that holding down a button would cut my remote battery life drastically.
It would be handy to be able to turn the lights on and off by remote. Unlocking flash does help find something in a crowded lot, but if it’s dark out it’d be nice to light up the path to my house and stuff.
I would like to be able to lock and unlock my doors by remote control.
Yes, at the moment my r/c central locking has gone on strike.