How can I start a car remotely via a computer??

[BillGates]

A friend of mine is working on a school project - considering a car would be capable of remotely starting, how would you be able to make that car start remotely (ideally, anywhere in the world) from a computer. This would most likely be from Win2k Server, but that may not be important..

Anybody have any ideas or experience in this or have any suggestions on where to start??

 

[fatalbert]

It should be easier with an electric car, but other wise you would just need it to start the engine, which doesn't require any real effort by people now so it should be fairly easy

 

[morkinva]

Back in the day there was a program which you could use to send a signal to a serial port (like for activating robots and stuff). You could use this signal to throw a relay. So you could hook this 'switching serial port' to the remote you need to use and start a car that way, by just running the program that switches the relay, from any remotely connected computer in the world. (in theory)


edit>> why couldn't you use one of those (shudder) x10 devices?

 

[BillGates]

I remember a few years ago seeing an ad for some car alarm that you could call from anywhere in the world and open windows, turn it on/off, etc... useless, sure, but I sure wish I could track that down again today!!

Thanks for the continued ideas!! Though I find it surprising that this is all the response I got at AT! Come on guys, you're supposed to be teched out! 😉

 

[Ameesh]

get a remote starter and a x10 module.

 

[BlueApple]

Anywhere in the world, you'd probably need to put a cell phone there with some starter device connected to the engine. But if you just want to do it from a driveway, you could get an antenna to attach to the computer and a component in the car to receive signals. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Miramonti]

I think a pager device would do the trick. Hook the circuit that makes it vibrate to a switch in the car which will in turn switch the ignition on. Another call to the pager could toggle it off. Only problem is wrong numbers to the pager. :Q

Maybe the cell phone idea is better which then some electronics wiz could auto-answer it and some voice recognition could be used for starting the car - that way there's complete control without wrong numbers.