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Mazda's $10 subscription for remote start sparks backlash after killing open source workaround via DMCA takedown (www.carscoops.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

276 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Mazda recently surprised customers by requiring them to sign up for a subscription in order to keep certain services. Now, notable right-to-repair advocate Louis Rossmann is calling out the brand.

It’s important to clarify that there are two very different types of remote start we’re talking about here. The first type is the one many people are familiar with where you use the key fob to start the vehicle. The second method involves using another device like a smartphone to start the car. In the latter, connected services do the heavy lifting.

Transition to paid services

What is wild is that Mazda used to offer the first option on the fob. Now, it only offers the second kind, where one starts the car via phone through its connected services for a $10 monthly subscription, which comes to $120 a year. Rossmann points out that one individual, Brandon Rorthweiler, developed a workaround in 2023 to enable remote start without Mazda’s subscription fees.

However, according to Ars Technica, Mazda filed a DMCA takedown notice to kill that open-source project. The company claimed it contained code that violated “[Mazda’s] copyright ownership” and used “certain Mazda information, including proprietary API information.”

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (12 children)

Mazda recently surprised customers by requiring them to sign up for a subscription in order to keep certain services. Now, notable right-to-repair advocate Louis Rossmann is calling out the brand.

Services. Services!? What the actual fuck are you talking about!? Remote start isn't a fucking service, it's a feature, that they are trying to control through greed.

Edit: I will give a small concession to the remote remote start, as that does need an OTA service. The service of course shouldn't be any more complicated than a SMS setup, so $15 per year is the absolute most you'll be able to get out of me...

2nd edit: And you damn well better include free modem upgrades. None of this $50+ for a fucking map update shit the other companies are pulling. That shit should have been an OTA update, Christ knows the damn thing tries to find an open Wi-Fi...

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (11 children)

It's a service if the only way to remote start the car, from the factory, is via a third party like 5G or LTE.

How are all those 3G car services faring these days? There were cars as recent as M.Y. 2019 that have reduced functionality or no functionality that was originally paid for.

What will it look like when LTE and 5G are inevitably shutdown and replaced?

It's one thing to say I have to buy a new $1000 phone. They almost go obsolete in other ways, or suffer extensive physical damage before the cellular radios get turned off. It's another thing to say that a feature of an $80,000 car is gone forever. Even if it's just a creature-comfort like remote start or remote windows. It's bullshit.

And then what? A $1500 credit off my next car of the same make for my 'inconvenience'? Fuck right the fuck off. How much more does it cost to let a fob toggle it, from the factory floor?

And besides that who the fuck wants to dig out an app to start their car when you could just have a physical button right there on the key? Having voice assistants or routines start it for you is cool and all, but it is well known that those will be obsoleted long before the rest of the car.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 weeks ago (10 children)

Small correction here:

These services have nothing to do with 3g, 5g or wifi. All those are just communication protocols that phones use to connect to the internet, and neither your phone, nor their apps nor their servers will care a dime about those. Of 6g comes out or 5g disappears, nothing changes.

As long as the provider keeps their servers for your services up, the service is there. And that's where the problem lies. It's not the cost. A single 100 dollar / month server could easily cover all remote starts world wide, it really doesn't require that much.

Decisions to take down these services and screw over paying customers are typically made my middle and upper management, to force people to buy their new crap

Yeah, it's still crap. I'm not trying to defend these products requiring paid services, it's shite and I would only use open sourced services, I'm just saying that the technology is a little different than you said

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

If the car uses 5g, ang 5g is no longer available, how do you connect to a server

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