There are a lot of reasons for invention that goes beyond necessity, and pure want is right up there at the top. A clever gent named Dave tired of making the 15-minute walk to his freezing cold car, so he built a long-distance remote starter from a prepaid cellphone.
To make it work, Dave removed the vibrating mechanism that would signal a call after receiving pulses from the phone's circuit board. Then he wired the phone to send those pulses to the remote starter's switch, and voila: two rings and the car starts up. He is no longer limited by proximity when using the remote start; as long as the phone gets a signal, he'll have a warm car whenever he gets there. Clever, no?
Total cost of the hack was $71.03, but that doesn't include the remote starter unit you'll need to buy and install in your car. And speaking of installing, should you try this out you might want to conceal your handiwork. These probably aren't the safest days to have someone coincidentally poking under your hood and finding a cell phone wired to your engine...
[Source: Dave Hacks via Engadget]
To make it work, Dave removed the vibrating mechanism that would signal a call after receiving pulses from the phone's circuit board. Then he wired the phone to send those pulses to the remote starter's switch, and voila: two rings and the car starts up. He is no longer limited by proximity when using the remote start; as long as the phone gets a signal, he'll have a warm car whenever he gets there. Clever, no?
Total cost of the hack was $71.03, but that doesn't include the remote starter unit you'll need to buy and install in your car. And speaking of installing, should you try this out you might want to conceal your handiwork. These probably aren't the safest days to have someone coincidentally poking under your hood and finding a cell phone wired to your engine...
[Source: Dave Hacks via Engadget]
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