Why do car keys not sometimes unlock other cars?

Question

I understand that the ability to unlock or lock a car is based on the frequency of the transmission from the key, but hypothetically wouldn’t some of these eventually overlap and lead to someone being able to unlock someone else’s car?

In: 0

Answer 1

The key fob doesn’t just send out a single frequency that matches its car, in fact all fobs and cars probably use the same basic frequencies. They use those frequencies to send specific digitally coded sequences that only one matching car will recognize. There are far more possible codes than there are cars so there’s no danger of unlocking the wrong car.