Central locking "chirpers"

on 19/03/2014, Tim+ supposed :

Some UK cars have them, some do not. My car does not, you have to watch for the indicator flashes, to confirm locking/ unlocking.

Hadn't given it much thought, wouldn't be much effort to poll the 'locked' signal and feed it to an Arduino* to generate the 'chirp' - can't see it being much of a business opportunity though :)

Lee

*Other micros/Pics are available :) :)

Tim+ wrote: [snip]

Why not just remember where you parked it?

I seem to recall it being barred for standard-fit new car alarms (at the very least) in the early '90s, about the time they started to be common. Aftermarket alarms seem not to be affected by that, though.

You haven't seen my local hospital's car park. ;-) Okay, if I tried a bit harder and wasn't stressed out with finding a space in the first place I might remember to memorise it's position better but it's poorly lit at night and a little chirp would make it much easier to find. Once spent

10-15 minutes looking for my car in the pissing rain at night in an airport car park after a holiday. Could have done without that aggro.

Tim

South African monkeys apparently listen for the chirp, and know that a car has been parked and left, and is ripe for the plundering.

:) :)

[...]

Reasonably recent Fords (and maybe others) turn on side/rear lamps when unlocked; much better idea than an audible signal.

Chris

I can switch the lights on remotely on my Disco 3. Not much use in the day, admittedly, but super-useful at the village firework display when it's parked in the middle of an unlit field in the pitch dark.

I think it's banned in the UK on cars made after a certain date. The aftermarket unit on my old car gives the choice of having it or not in software.

Are we talking about the means to locate a parked car 'audibly'? If so, my recently purchased Shogun gives a slightly muted 'I'm being pinched' alarm if you press the 'lock' button when it is already locked. Very annoying IMHO. Enquired of the (main) dealer and a local car alarm company if this could be turned off somewhere and was told it could not. Please reply to group - email address is not monitored Ian

Sounds the same as the one on my '96 Shogun - it's a LaserLine after- market, presumably dealer-fit.

And it's not exactly "muted" - it's almost inaudible. Except that's the normal alarm volume...

The bigger pain in the arse with it is the seemingly random auto-arming. One of these days, I _will_ lock the keys in it. And I've only got one remote, and the alarm's been on there so long that all the door locks have seized through lack of use...

Sounds the same as the one on my '96 Shogun - it's a LaserLine after- market, presumably dealer-fit.

And it's not exactly "muted" - it's almost inaudible. Except that's the normal alarm volume...

The bigger pain in the arse with it is the seemingly random auto-arming. One of these days, I _will_ lock the keys in it. And I've only got one remote, and the alarm's been on there so long that all the door locks have seized through lack of use...

I had the option of enabling it by snipping a wire on an aftermarket alarm that came with my old 1.6 Nova. Lasted about a week before I got very bored/embarrassed by the noise.

Imagine most modern cars are like my current BM and can have it enabled/disabled in software.

Certainly the case for VAG.

Easy for me, - mine's the white one. ;-)

Mine's a Cobra aftermarket and I THINK Mitsubishi UK fit but might be dealer. I had presumed it was muted but it is certainly audible. Scares the bewotsits out of me every time I hit the wrong button. (Actually I've now learned not to - unlike SWMBO) I haven't yet had any inappropriate arming . I'll make a note to use the locks manually occassionally to forestall another little problem..... Please reply to group - email address is not monitored Ian

They're useful if you've just stolen some car keys from a hotel room, and want to locate the corresponding car in the car park. One of my work colleagues discovered this the hard way.