Sharp integrating Nissan's Intelligent Key car technology into mobile phones. Image: Sharp/Nissan.
Japanese consumer electronics company Sharp Corporation has taken the convenience of keyless engine-starts and remote door locking a step further this week after it introduced a mobile phone capable of giving technophile drivers access to both through their handsets.
Sharp’s latest mobile phone creation uses a technology called “Intelligent Key”, which was initially developed by car manufacturing giant Nissan Motor Co. to allow drivers to gain access to their vehicles and start their engines without ever having to use a standard physical key.
The in-car system, which Nissan has already installed and shipped in around one million vehicles since 2002, works by using two-way wireless communication to sense the local positioning of its assigned remote key outside the car before then unlocking its doors to enable entry. Once the driver has entered the car and brought the key technology inside, the system then allows engine ignition.
Although the system already exists through Nissan’s remote key entry application, Sharp’s “world’s first” take on the technology places the key within a mobile phone so that users don’t have to fish around looking for their remote and can instead just hit a button on their handsets to gain instant entry and control.
The new phone is pencilled in for an initial roll out through Japan’s NTT DoCoMo network, the country’s biggest mobile phone operator.
Sharp, NTT DoCoMo and Nissan are all expected to individually showcase the enhanced Intelligent Key technology at next week’s CEATEC technology conference in Tokyo, which starts on September 30.
All three core contributors have said development of the technology is ongoing and that a retail-ready remote access mobile phone device should be hitting stores by the close of March 2009.
