Add SMS control to your car

[Matski]

If you already have a car alarm or wish to add SMS on the cheep (but extreemly functional) then check the SMS Controller from Jaycar

To activate the SMS when the car alarm goes off just connect to your siren wiring. Eze!

This kit will also allow you to disarm, arm, open doors, start your car, shut it down if stolen and anything else you can imagine. The kit can send SMS notifications to you and you can send SMS's back to control it.

You will need a soldering iron and a real cheep (second hand) nokia phone.

Im working on this project at the moment and hope to install it in the next few months.

As for starting the car remotely I am thinking a three stage interlock which wont allow the car to start (or shut it down) if:

a) The hand brake is off

B) Its not in neutral

c) It moves before I enter the car and plug in my seatbelt

Im keen to hear your thoughts on what should be on my list of things to have available via SMS control? Ejector Seat? Pepper spray? LOL

M@

[geordie]

If you already have a car alarm or wish to add SMS on the cheep (but extreemly functional) then check the SMS Controller from Jaycar

To activate the SMS when the car alarm goes off just connect to your siren wiring. Eze!

This kit will also allow you to disarm, arm, open doors, start your car, shut it down if stolen and anything else you can imagine. The kit can send SMS notifications to you and you can send SMS's back to control it.

You will need a soldering iron and a real cheep (second hand) nokia phone.

Im working on this project at the moment and hope to install it in the next few months.

As for starting the car remotely I am thinking a three stage interlock which wont allow the car to start (or shut it down) if:

a) The hand brake is off

B) Its not in neutral

c) It moves before I enter the car and plug in my seatbelt

Im keen to hear your thoughts on what should be on my list of things to have available via SMS control? Ejector Seat? Pepper spray? LOL

M@

* A trap door

*little motors that make the bonnet, boot and doors flap up and down (lots of attention)

*a loudspeaker that yells, "help me im being stolen"

* something that makes the gearlever and steering wheel detach at the bottom of the stem.

My imagination gets to much exercise

[SupaFly Skyline]

flames shooting out from under the sills, South African style?

[sigsputnik]

but you still need a SIM card or something, right? not sure how this works...you can't just plug the jaycar kit into your car, and then have it work with your nokia 7250, could you?

[always_me]

i ant one if you can have all those functions you mentioned.

[Matski]

but you still need a SIM card or something, right? not sure how this works...you can't just plug the jaycar kit into your car, and then have it work with your nokia 7250, could you?

The kit was developed by Silicon Chip Magazine and is sold through Jaycar

The following links will help you understand its operations:

SMS Controller - Part 1

SMS Controller - Part 2

SMS Controller - Add On's

Note: As silicone chip requires membership for full access the links above are a little vague. The full instructions, supplied with the kit, are much easier to understand.

In short the kit has a number of relay inputs which, when shorted to ground, make the micro send an SMS via a compatible nokia phone. You use the phone to program the micro so its easy to customise the messages. Going the other direction the phone receives an SMS and passes it on to the micro which reads the SMS text and validates it. If the text matches what you programmed in it shorts the appropriate output relay to ground. Check the picture at the bottom of SMS Controller - Add On's page for details on the I/O.

Along with the SMS kit you need:

- A compatible nokia phone (3210, 3310, 5110, and 6110)

- A nokia data cable

- SIM card

The phones listed are available in almost every pawn brokers, local paper or from phone shops. I would expect to pay around $20 for a 3210 or 3310.

The data cable can be purchased from nokia or you may build it yourself with a few components and vero-board, its rather simple.

I would use a pre-paid SIM card for this they last about a year and if your only sending on alarm activation the SMS's will be minimal.

Thinking about how I will wire up the alarm to send an SMS upon activation the cable from the alarm to the siren would be easily located.

There is a catch to this though. The siren will sound when you arm / disarm your alarm and you wont want an SMS every time this happens. To overcome this use a 555 Timer IC (about $0.20) and a relay so the alarm must sound for 3 - 8 seconds before it triggers the SMS controller.

I am in the process of drawing up a circuit diagram, schematic and parts list for the project. I’ll post them here once they are complete. All together it should cost no more than $100.

[32brother]

flames shooting out from under the sills, South African style?

Mate I saw that on tv one night. What a pisser. Legal to have, illegal to use.

But the idea of sms in-conjunction with your alarm is a bloody good idea!

Will look in to further.

[sigsputnik]

crumbs, matski, this sounds good. thanks heaps for posting up the info.

i'm guessing you'd want to keep the number secret, so someone else can't sms your car either from their phone or yours?

[Matski]

crumbs, matski, this sounds good. thanks heaps for posting up the info.

i'm guessing you'd want to keep the number secret, so someone else can't sms your car either from their phone or yours?

The controller will only activate the appropriate relay when it receives an SMS which matches, exactly, the text you programmed in. So if someone had your number they would also need to know what to put in the SMS text.

To further security you may include a pin in the text eg. '2366 Start Engine'

Unless that exact text was received it would not activate.

[Matski]

Mate I saw that on tv one night. What a pisser. Legal to have, illegal to use.

But the idea of sms in-conjunction with your alarm is a bloody good idea!

Will look in to further.

LOL.. A variation on that could be pepper spray although im guessing if you were to face court over something like that you will almost certainly end up screwed.

The idea would be to hit the cab with a very short burst of spray once:

a) the alarm sounds for more than 10 sec.

B) a little switch behind your stereo, boost controller or any other item of value is triggered.

So if the stereo was tampered with (and the alarm on) a short burst of freshly ground seasoning would incapacitate the offender causing them to be unable to see and thus unable to continue removing your $hit.

I would be working on interlocks & a sealed box for the spray cos a 'misfire' might be rather nasty .. LOL

:boinkcar:

On more practical ideas heated seats would be a nice option. Im thinking about having the skyline re-trimmed in black Oz leather. If that comes about I'll be installing some heaters to. An SMS a few minutes before I enter the car in the morning would ensure warm seats every time. Again an interlock would turn them off if; after 10 minutes the car was not started. Go the 555 timer!

[sigsputnik]

An SMS a few minutes before I enter the car in the morning would ensure warm seats every time.

it'd be wizard to control this with a wireless (wifi) connection - the car's parked in the garage and it transacts with a pc in the house. every night the home pc could download run data for that day. also, the home pc could provide a bit of security by pinging the car pc every few minutes or so: "still there?" "yep!". if the pings stop, the home pc activates cameras somewhere (in the garage? maybe the cabin?).

with the sms connection, it'd also be cool to have it connected to a gps unit, so that if it gets stolen, you can text your car and it will text you back with its current location...

[oscar32]

I want it.

I'm going to have a crack at this myself I think. Great idea.

Damnit, flame throwers should be allowed on car theifs.

[Matski]

it'd be wizard to control this with a wireless (wifi) connection

Now that’s an idea that should be developed further!

I’m thinking Wi-Fi and a small PC, maybe running Linux or Windows Media Center (yet to test the boot up speeds?). When you drive within range of your home you get all your movies etc sync'd to your car.

As we have climate control why not incorporate that into an application and remove the climate control head unit in the dash. More room for a 15" flat screen I say! 3M make resistive touch screen ad-on's which would fit the part really well.

Watch movies, control your car (lights climate etc) & get engine stats from a 15" dash mount LCD. Now that would look sic and probably win a few awards at car shows to.

[geordie]

I’m thinking Wi-Fi and a small PC, maybe running Linux or Windows Media Center (yet to test the boot up speeds?). When you drive within range of your home you get all your movies etc sync'd to your car.

This has been done, i guy put it in his audi, running via touch screen in dash. I think the thread was on this forum somewherer actually....no idea where though

[Matski]

Just ordered the BR-SC11A from Blue Radios. This quick toturial will show you how easy it is to get the chip working.

I currently use my IMATE Phone / PDA for GPS navigation and playing videos in my car (hooked up to an AUX input on my stereo). With the bluetooth module above I could make a simple app in .NET and control my car via my phone / pda's Bluetooth. A PC version would also be in the making.

Once the chip arrives from the states I'll begin development. If all works out well I'll have a run of PCB's made and put up a post for group buys. It will operate much like the SMS controller with a number of relay inputs & outputs. These would be controlled via a Windows (XP and Pocket PC version) application.

This would work well with the Navman PDA / GPS you can buy for under $500. The Blue Radio's chip can also stream audio so it would make sense to put AUX outputs on the board also.

If we have any programmers / electronics wiz's who would like to develop this further it would be great to work with you? My email:

[email protected]

Remove the caps. Down with the SPAM bots!

M@

[sigsputnik]

hey matski - yer i'm keen to help but i'm not an electronics whizz. nor would i be any good at programming i think - what languages were you thinking of using?

[r00line]

Matski, i'd be keen to help, I've got a couple of years experience with c# and have been looking for a project to get into...

[djhatton]

nice one! i'm handy with an iron/cro/etc etc so i'm keen to see how this works out too!

d

[Matski]

I was thinking of developing in .NET only because of cross platform (Win XP and Pocket PC 2003) portability. Either way we will need to access the bluetooth stack so its really what languages we are comfortable with.

On the hardware side. The bluetooth radio chip will need a micro controller to interface with the real world. I think a PICmicro would be most suited to the application. I already have the development boards and lots of assembler code from previous projects. Ehh assembler I hear you say.. LOL.. Have some C (ANSI) also.

Relay and Analogue I/O would connect to the PICmicro then the PIC would communicate via serial to the bluetooth chip. Once I get the bluetooth chip I'll post all the data.

That’s my thoughts so far. Its great to see pplz interested in developing this further so I'll hand it over for your thoughts.

[sigsputnik]

crumbs it's been years since i've coded assembler...no hurry to go back lol.

think it would be best if we could keep the unit physically small. if i was a thief i'd be keen to rip this out the first chance i got (after disconnecting the alarm).