Patent ID: 11891016
Assignee: VOXX INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
Field: Transport (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC B  H  G  Y | IPC B  G  H

Claim 20:
21. A method of operating smartkey-enabled features of a vehicle through a vehicle control system (VCS) installed in the vehicle, the method comprising:
establishing a Radio Frequency (RF) communication link between an RF transceiver of the VCS and an authorized mobile device, the authorized mobile device being authorized to access one or more of the smartkey-enabled features of the vehicle;
obtaining an estimate of distance from the vehicle to the authorized mobile device;
receiving by the VCS through the RF communication link a command corresponding to a smartkey-enabled action; and
if the estimate is less than a predetermined limit,
configuring a smartkey power control module (SPCM) of the VCS from a first configuration in which the SPCM does not provide electrical power to a smartkey coupled to the SPCM to a second configuration in which the SPCM provides electrical power to the smartkey, and
causing the smartkey-enabled action to be performed in response to the step of receiving.