What I need: volume up, volume down, channel up, channel down.
What I get: “Welcome to Nissan Audio Experience Smart Connect! Download our app to personalize your automotive listening experience! Clicking the off button indicates that you accept our terms of usage, including gathering your speed, location, and social security number solely for the purpose of improving our quality. Based on your past purchases, please enjoy your specially customized playlist called ‘toilet seat warmer 120VAC’”
The reminds me of the time Facilities decided to all day fire alarm testing on a Monday during normal business hours. :smack: I mean it’s not like a blaring alarm going at random during the work day is going to distract anyone, especially in the call center (on the busiest day of the week). I mean they send out a mass email telling everyone to ignore the firm alarm unless another email went out to confirm the building is really on fire.
This. They are saving millions of dollars over time doing this and actually inconveniencing very few. Also, you can update the app but not a physical remote.
They aren’t assuming a damn thing. They made the decision to save a lot of money knowing the downsides.
I’m a runner, I never carry my phone when I run, race, or go to the gym. In fact, I have a cheap, $5 chipless key that will only unlock the doors (& turn the car on to “Accessory” mode). Not all of my running shorts have pockets. I intentionally lock the ‘real’ key in the car & tie the cheap one into my shoelaces. No electronics means I don’t even need to worry if it gets wet when we do stream crossings while trail running. These new cars that won’t let you lock the key in them are a bug, not a feature. I’m not the only one in my group that feels this way.
If I lose my phone, I can use the keycard in my wallet. It’s less convenient, but workable in a pinch. If I lose both somehow, then I retrieve the keycard I have at home (inconvenient of course, but as Dewey Finn said, no worse than losing my keys). If I was married, I’d have my wife’s phone paired with the car, and she could give me access remotely (even from the other side of the country). And if I needed extra keycards, they’re only $25 for spares.
Again, the keycard solves this problem. I know that runners frequently wear a little thing to hold a credit card or two. If not, you can hole-punch the card (not through the antenna…) and tie it into your shoe or necklace or something. Completely waterproof, lighter than a key, and virtually indestructible.
Not that anyone on this thread would approve, but I believe that some people are working out how to get the car to respond to those implantable RFID chips, like for pets :).
Once they introduced that to access my work email remotely I pretty much stopped using my work email directly. Instead I have all my mail from that account forwarded to my Gmail account where I can just deal with it without having to log in/authenticate all the time.
Chase has pissed me off since, when I want to put a travel notification on my cards, the only option they offer is to send an authentication code to my phone either by voice or a text message - there is no option to receive it by email. But guess what? Since I live in Panama, they are apparently unable to send the code to a foreign number. So I have to call them and go through an entire rigmarole verifying who I am. (I swear to god, they didn’t just use my own security questions, but did a search on my former address in New York, searched for other people who had lived there, came up with my mother, and asked me her birthday which they got from public records! It was incredibly creepy.) It took me 15 minutes on the phone to do a travel notification on both my credit and debit cards. Meanwhile, doing it on my other card from BOA, which doesn’t require authentication, took all of 30 seconds on line.
Yeah, I get that a lot with my electronics, all of which are more than six months old (except my smartphone - got that just a couple months ago. A really, basic, bare-bones model which I’m told is borderline obsolete.)
Not to mentioned that it used to be a common complaint about remotes that they had too many buttons on them. See here. A non-trivial number of people want the super-simple remote.
Coming back to say… gosh darn, someone DID think about that! The app is also accessible on all the PC’s at work.
(Some of our employees are “special needs” and do not have either computers or smartphones - it’s not so much fear of where they might wander on the web as unsavory types taking advantage - or worse - of people are impaired. And some of our more financially impaired employees don’t have to buy one, or senior citizens who don’t want to have to learn a new gadget.)
Just use the ancient techniques of Bonsai Kitten to store the cat in a small jar. Use of a small kitten will ensure that you use up only one cup holder.
But how can anyone determine if the building is on fire without an email? There’s absolutely no way for you to know.
UNLESS, you download our new “Izzit-A-Blaze?” app.
“Izzit-A-Blaze?” makes it convenient and fun to discover if your’re in a fire or not! “Izzit” uses a propriety algorithm to dispatch special fire-smelling turtles to you the moment the ambient temperature in your building rises 3 degrees. Our Fire-Turtles use state-of-the-art 7G WiFi to automatically find the fastest route to shamble your way right when you need it.*
So yeah. Don’t wonder if you’re building is on fire… Find out for sure with **“Izzit-A-Blaze?” **
*In a hurry? “XPress Turtle Taxxee” is available for an addition charge . “XPress Turtle Taxxee” app required. (Not available in Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Louisiana, Rhode Island or any other state.)
