Unlocked Harrier over phone call with spare key: How's it possible?

I called up my friend who is in Bangalore and he took the spare key from my house and after putting his mobile on speaker, unlocked the car couple of times.

BHPian theexperthand recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Locked Out

Yes, I did it. I successfully locked myself out of the car. I was visiting my dad's bro and had to retrieve something from the boot. I clicked the boot open button on the remote, opened the boot, put the key inside and took out the bag I wanted to take, and then closed the boot lid - without retrieving the key

For the next 10 minutes, I gave a stiff competition to a headless chicken (or so they say). Once initial panic set in, we started trying different ways to unlock the car without the key. There is no gap between the window sill and glass, so could not try inserting a scale or some other object to unlock the car. I made a call to the Tata customer care and they coordinated with the nearest service center and said I will get a call from the TASS and they will send someone to my location in the next couple of hours.

It was then we remembered that I did something similar years back (pocketed the key of my dad's bro's car after parking it and came back to Bangalore with the key in my pocket - the spare key was inside the car) and we managed to open the car using a mobile phone. By this time, dad managed to get hold of a relative who works in TASS and he also suggested giving the mobile phone route a try.

I called up my friend who is in Bangalore (who, fortunately, had my house key with him) and he took the spare key from my house and after putting his mobile on speaker, unlocked the car couple of times. I also put my phone on speaker and kept the phone near the front door and voila, after a couple of times my friend clicked the unlock key, we heard the sweet music of the car unlocking.

Here's what BHPian BrakeDancer had to say on the matter:

Re getting locked out of the car. Damn. That's a nightmare. But this is the first time I've heard of the workaround you did to get it unlocked! Sounds interesting. The 5th Gen City has a tech whereby even if you put your keys inside the boot and close the boot accidentally, it doesn't close, and gives out a warning sound indicating that the keys are in the boot. It's a very commendable piece of tech and more car makers should make this available, instead of the standard gimmicks we get in the name of technology.

Here's what BHPian irdevanand had to say on the matter:

Slightly off topic ...

My Honda city wont lock itself if the key is inside . One day we packed the spare key inside one of the suitcases and when we tried to lock the boot it kept unlocking. Finally i had to take the key out and then lock.

Both Tata and Mahindra have achieved design parity and better safety compared to other leading makers. Now is the time to focus on these minute topics for a wholesome experience.

Regards

Dev

Here's what BHPian PreludeSH had to say on the matter:

Really ? Does the keyfob emit frequencies that match the human frequency range ? Even then only a small band in the human voice frequency is passed by modulating to the radio frequencies and converting back to what was originally passed. If the keyfob is using higher radio frequencies, it cant work

If its working, you can as well record the tone and play it back to unlock

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