Mazda announced today a dealer-installed option that’ll let owners start their car, lock their doors and annoy everyone in the neighborhood via panic alarm.
The app, which is free for the first year and $65 annually after, will be called Mazda Mobile Start. The suggested retail price is $500 for the option, but allegedly official kits are selling on Ebay for $419.50.
The remote start will run for 30 minutes to warm up or cool down your car, according to Mazda. The system runs via GPS, but it’s unclear if navigation is a required option on the car. We reached out to Mazda to ask if the system could remotely stop an engine, but haven’t yet received a response.
In addition to remote start, panic and locking, Mazda is also offering a GPS locating system to help frequent flyers find cars in massive, crowded airport parking lots.
The app is available for most major smartphones, which basically means any phone not made by Blackberry.
Funny…GM has been offering this for the past three years and is compatible with 2006 models and up. Currently it is free for five years on new vehicles and part of the Onstar subscription but yet not a peep about that.
There are also aftermarket starters too.
When I autostart either of my cars in the winter, the heated seats, defogger, heated mirrors, heated steering wheel and cabin heater automatically come on.
When I autostart either of my cars in the summer, the air-conditioner and cooled seats automatically come on .
I don’t need an app, though it would be nice to be able to send nav directions ahead from Google Maps to Uconnect.
The app means you can do it from the comfort of your desk half a mile away from the parking lot.
My Volkswagen lets you send directions via the Car Net app. It does not have remote start, however. The only Volkswagen that has remote start is the SEL trim of the Passat (in 2.5, TSI, TDI or 3.6 guise)…and I’m not sure the app includes that function. But it’s just as well…my TDI can sit idle for 30 minutes or more and not even be remotely warm.
Most GM cars have done this since remote start was added.
The OnStar App has a navigation tab allowing you to download directions to the navigation system in the car. In my Cadillacs, I’m able to chose just voice prompts or full mapping on the screen.
When the app was first released, I could adjust the temperature or change the radio station as well, but GM removed that feature several years ago.
I can still access the trip computer and tire pressures, amongst other features.
My only complaint is that the graphics took a step backwards with the latest update.
Oh, you mean like the thing my $20k Sonata has been doing all along? Funny.
I can do the send directions to nav thing, too. Though unlike BTS’s case, my car won’t turn on the heated seats. Still, considering I paid the same as a plastic Subaru penalty box with burlap seats and an antediluvian dashboard, I’m not complaining. :P
Maybe I’m just cheap, but that’s a lot of money for what amounts to about 3 minutes of discomfort in the afternoon.
That’s more than a year subscription to PS4 or XBONE. I’d pass.
I think I’d prefer a smorgasbord of free games and trials over a simple keyfob function.
Not to mention making your car more vulnerable to miscreants.
I’m willing to buy gas and parts for my cars, I ain’t paying for what should be a free app.
Don’t factory key-fobs already do stuff like this?
This too. I am buying the product, and paying for the optional app compatibility. I’m not paying you a fee to use something which I already paid for.
Just like if my sat nav cost a subscription, I wouldn’t pay for that either.
+1
I’m sure it will also come standard with all sorts of security vulnerabilities.
Well, with our 2012 Sonata Limited, which has Hyundai’s BlueLink telematics system, the app *is* the only way to remote start the vehicle. The key fob does not have a remote start function.
Was the app free for your Hyundai?
Lets hope that cars don’t go the way of video games via the whole concept of “charge people for what they’ve already purchased”.
Well, the app itself is of course free, but you have to pay for BlueLink, which is a subscription-based telematics system, the equivalent to OnStar. Like OnStar, the car uses a cellular data network to send and receive data, and that costs money, so it’s technically not charging you for something you already have.
And with most automakers, even if you aren’t a paid subscriber to the company’s telematics system, the car will still go ahead and phone the police if you are involved in an accident in which your airbags deploy.
Why not just build remote-start into the Fob?
Who knows? I wish they would do that, as well as offer it on the app…
Bet it took ALL DAY to make the five icons all look the same.
Oh dear; that is not very user-oriented at all, and I’m glad you pointed it out. The point of icons like these should be to make them instantly recognizable, not to make them cute so that they all look similar and the user, in a moment of hurry or frustration, accidentally presses the wrong one. Mazda could have employed other techniques to give the icons a uniform theme or school of design without making them look confusingly alike.
The monthly charge by Mazda is total BS. Similarly, I don’t subscribe to the low-fidelity satellite radio service (which is now a monopoly).
I hope it works better than the factory installed remote start on my CX5. It works fine when I’m home and the car is parked in the attaached garage. When I am out, usually the car is parked too far away for it to work. Sometimes it will work, but I get the message it didn’t work. I don’t think it’s worth $500, except when it’s -20, I may have a different opinion.