The biggest mobile phone trend of 2012? Contact-less payment through NFC. That’s all well and good – your bank wants you to be able to leave the house without having to carry your coin purse – but is it the jingly things in your other pocket that could be better replaced by a mobile? One hacker thinks so. Is your future smartphone also going to be your keys?
If a mobile phone can legitimately replace the need for a wallet, we’re all for it, but you know what’s often bulgier and more uncomfortable pocket furniture? Keys. It needn’t be this way, though; hacker Brad Nelson has come up with a solution that lets him start his scooter and unlock the seat compartment with nothing but his phone.
Nelson’s hack (which you can learn to recreate here) goes by the name of ‘Bluition’, since it uses Bluetooth and a few simple gestures. By installing a custom Bluetooth receiver inside the scooter’s guts, Nelson’s been able to programme his phone to speak to the ignition via a series of shakes in the Android app Tasker.
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It’s amazing stuff, and makes you wonder whether it could be used elsewhere in the near future. Could this tech be applied to your house keys? It’s not too much of a stretch – you’d just have to hope that your phone doesn’t run out of battery or fall into the wrong hands.
Watch the video below to see Nelson’s ‘Bluition’ scooter key hack:
