Digital car keys are becoming more complex

Last month, more than a dozen auto and smartphone manufacturers gathered in Palo Alto, California, for the 16th annual Plugfest, hosted by the Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) to test the latest digital key technology.

Digital keysThat allow vehicle owners to lock, unlock and start their vehicles using smartphones or other digital devices, are becoming more popular. Plugfest’s goal was to provide a place for CCC members — from automakers and smart device manufacturers to cloud service providers and chip makers — to come together to test interoperability and real-world performance across vehicles, devices, and wireless technologies. Plugfest is an opportunity for companies that are usually tough competitors to come together in a spirit of collaboration to ensure digital keys work across different devices and vehicle brands.

But the event was also an acknowledgment that as modern cars become more complex, these verification efforts will become increasingly important to ensure digital keys can keep up with innovation in the automotive and smartphone markets. As automakers shift their focus to software-defined vehicles that can receive over-the-air updates and appear to get better over time, digital keys will need to improve as well.

“It’s a difficult technical problem when you’re trying to solve wireless access using this fragmented set of device hardware and then device software,” said Waseem Bin Saeed, chief program officer at Rivian. Edge. RV Tech, a joint venture between Rivian and Volkswagen, hosted Plugfest last month.

Bin Saeed said complexity favors companies like Rivian with more vertical integration. Seamless phone-to-car connectivity requires deep integration across vehicle software, cloud systems, and a highly fragmented hardware ecosystem that spans iOS and multiple Android variants with different wireless characteristics. Industry standards like the CCC are essential when harmonizing these technologies, he said.

It appears that a lot of power rests in the hands of phone manufacturers, which need to ensure that each car brand adheres to its strict standards regarding data security and privacy. At last year’s WWDC, for example, Apple has announced that it will soon support digital car keys From 13 car brands, including Audi, Cadillac, Chevy, Hyundai, Kia, GMC, Volvo, Rivian, and others – bringing the total number to 33 brands. The keys are added to the Wallet app, and can be used to lock, unlock, and start the car using technology like NFC, UWB, or BLE — depending on what the car supports.

The CCC does most of the heavy lifting by bringing together most of the major auto companies as well as Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi. It also includes the FiRa Consortium, a non-profit organization that supports ultra-broadband and counts Apple, Google, Cisco, Samsung, Qualcomm and others as members. CCC President Alicia Johnson said that since its launch Digital Key Certification Program in late 2023The group saw a significant increase in certifications, from two in 2024 to 115 in 2025.

This year, the CCC is rolling out Version 4 of its specification, which provides more support to fleet owners such as municipal governments, as well as car rental companies. Another major improvement is improved “Friend Sharing,” which allows vehicle owners to securely and easily share access with others, regardless of the recipient’s phone type or manufacturer. Johnson gave the example of letting your neighbor borrow your car if his car breaks down by sending him a secure copy of your car key. Once this is done, you can easily revoke access to the digital key.

“It’s like sharing a photo, if you text someone a photo,” she said. “They don’t need an app for my car. They don’t need to have the same type of phone.”

Digital keys are not a flawless system. Reddit is full of posts From people complaining about their digital keys in a variety of subreddits, including those for Kia, BYD, Rivian, Volvo, and others. “I’ll be standing there with the app open and it won’t recognize that I’m there,” one Tesla Model 3 owner said. Post last month. Like any software-based system, defects remain an ongoing problem.

Bin Saeed said, from Rivian’s point of view, UWB technology represents the most reliable technology. He added that UWB’s superior accuracy and security, especially when combined with BLE for proximity-based locking and unlocking, gives customers a better experience through its accuracy.

“Some of the anecdotal feedback we received from our customers when we launched CCC at the end of last year, some of it pointing to accuracy at the edge, which is something they’re really enjoying now,” Bin Saeed said.