Ticket Created
over 2 years ago

WERETECH-12724

Use watch as BLE key for a vehicle: requires long writes and/or NFC

Many vehicles today have a "phone key" feature where you can use your phone instead of a key and the vehicle automatically unlocks as your approach using BLE. Ford, Tesla, Mercedes, Rivian, and others have this feature, and many of these protocols are either open-source or have been reverse-engineered by enthusiasts.

I have partially implemented a solution on my Forerunner 245, but I am at a dead end because the watch cannot read or write more than 20 bytes at a time. Is this a hardware limitation? If not, is it possible that this functionality could be implemented?

I often go for runs and do not want to have to bring a key or my phone with me, and for me being able to unlock the car with my watch would be the ultimate solution.

As a side note, I know there is already a report for this but an NFC API would also be great! There are several examples of projects using NFC on a smartwatch as a key for a vehicle.

  • Thanks for the response!

    I'm by no means a legal expert, but if the security side can be figured out I'm thinking Garmin doesn't have to implement the BLE/NFC functionality themselves, but rather allow developers to send larger BLE reads/writes and expose an NFC API. This would allow developers, including the car manufacturers themselves, to create their own implementations of the digital car key.

  • I will forward the request to the engineering team, but I suspect there will be legal (and security) concerns. Since you would need approval from each automotive company.