[gd1418]

Very very interesting. That was then in 2000-01. what about now?

Originally Posted by ram

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Off topic:
I used a Philips MiFare ISO 14443A contactless SmartCard peripheral. It fit beautifully into an autorickshaw taillamp lens which I used as the casing. The assembly was fixed on the rear parcel shelf, flush with the rear quarter window.

The main Atmel microcontroller based motherboard was mounted in a polypropylene bread-box in the trunk.

A Schlumberger contactless smart-card presented within five inches of the rear quarter window from outside, unlocked the car and disabled the ignition immobilizer. My carputer also recorded timestamps of when the car was last used. Had to replace the driver's doorlock inside lever, with a motorized one from Autocop.

Used another Schlumberger contactless smart-card with a different digital signature-id to unlock the Nexia's trunk.

The system would also automatically windup the windows and lock the car, if the car was left unsecured for some (programmable amount of) time. One early issue that bugged me, was that after 8-hours in the hot sun, the car's battery voltage would drop below the design 11.5 V.

In summary, it was a hugely successful project, but SmartCard peripheral costs in 2000-2001 prevented me from making it a viable commercial product for India.