A few months back, Directed Electronics launched an iPhone app that, when paired with Viper remote start system, would allow you to start your car from just about anywhere on earth. For the bargain price of just $500, you’d never again have to worry about your car being too hot, too cold, or too not on when you got in. Alas, not everyone has an iPhone – what about the remaining chunk of the world that wants to look like James Bond and/or scare people?
Today, Direct Electronics is letting another big group of people in on the slightly-extraneous fun with the release of Viper SmartStart for BlackBerry.
Depending on what sort of car you’ve got and what features it makes available to the SmartStart system, the free BlackBerry app can fire up the engine, toggle the door locks, enable and disable the security system, pop the trunk, ring the panic alarm. It can’t pick up your dry cleaning or drop your grandmother off at the airport, but we can probably expect that from a (distant) future model.
The module that makes your car friendly with the free iPhone app will set you back $200 bucks, which is on top of the $300-or-so security system that you plug it into. That said, if you’ve already got a compatible remote start system from Viper, Clifford or Python, you’ll only need the module and the free app.