In the end, the KIA car company made its cars into subscription models, I really hate this because in the end the car we buy with our own money doesn’t feel like it belongs to us. Should we finally buy an old school car ? so as not to be affected by this subscription models or is there a way to crack the software installed in it ?
To find a car and control it remotely will need a server. That’s why it’s not free.
it looks like only way is to somehow imitate their API and change those links in the car. I think it would be cool to selfhost such server.
The car costs a lot of money and they already give you wareanty, free service and will in one way or another milk you for years to come. I don’t think one more connection to a server costs this much.
Especially since all the „telemetry” is uploaded for free.
It’s the cell plan not the server costs unfortunately. When they moved to app based starting from anywhere you need to start paying the cell carrier for that wireless connection.
Servers and engineers to maintain the software and infrastructure are also not free.
Sure, but not $60/year per car expensive
No, that’s still mostly the cellular connection.
Bulk cellular connection at that scale is much less than $1 per month per car.
So there’s two different “remote” actions. One would be using a key fob and the other through an app. I sincerely hope that the unlock/lock, start/stop through the key fob is always free and these charges are for some sort of app. However 150 yearly seems quite expensive unless there’s some neat features that aren’t in the screenshot.
They removed the start/stop from the key fobs and paywalled it behind the app.
Edit: yes yes, I get it, I was wrong. No need to tell me again lol.
There was a minute when it wasn’t on the key fob for a lot of the Korean cars. My extra wife’s 2022 Kona, fully loaded, doesn’t have remote start on the fob, only through the app.
What are you referring to? I have a 2022 Kia and I press the lock button then hold the start button on my key fob to start it. Same sequence to turn it off.
I subscribed to the app my first year with the car mainly because I was able to reimburse it at work. It was nice being able to start remotely no matter how many floors away I was in the winter but since I work from home now I didn’t maintain the subscription anymore.
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I can understand some of these features requiring a $5/month subscription. Anything more than that is absolutely insane. With roadside assistance (depending on what that actually entails) I could see that sevice being bumped to $15-$20 a month,
Interestingly, these do include roadside and the cheaper option is $5/month and the more expensive one is just over $12/month.
So it sounds to me like this would be a good value for you.
I never said this was a bad value, but I think we all know that these prices will not remain. They will increase because people will pay it once they are locked in. And if someone buys a used car, they have to pay that subscription to get these features, ensuring the manufacturer gets a slice from used sales. I can understand the cost, but it sets a dangerous precedent. It should be one time fee that grants the VIN access to the severs permanently. What would be really nice is if we had legislation that requires companies with a certain amount of revenue to maintain services for older products so they can’t just pull the plug later anyways.