As digital tech gets ever smarter, safety and security solutions for vehicles are becoming ever more advanced and varied. That said, one might argue there are two drawbacks with these constant step forwards. First, they don’t exactly help keep the prices of car security systems as low as possible and, second, as soon as one system (often featuring a brand-spanking new, clever bit of tech) becomes popular with motorists throughout the country or, indeed, the world, thieves and ne’er-do-wells come up with equally ingenious ways to thwart them and do away with your car’s radio – or the car itself.

So, what’s the answer? Is there one? Or will this process continue to spiral upwards; the tech getting more price-restrictive and cleverer and the car thieves’ efforts to combat them matching the technology’s ingenuity? Well, there’s an invention on the horizon that may break this cycle – it’s called VibWrite and it works by verifying an owner’s identity to let them into their car through vibration. Yes, that’s right; vibration.

A market gamechanger?

This device, it should be pointed out, is still in its testing stage, but so far, the results certainly look promising. Because not only is the device likely to work well for vehicles, it may also be possible to roll out for use for houses, flats, business buildings and various appliances (almost anything with a solid surface, apparently). And best of all for the consumer, it appears it could prove to be a relatively cheap biometric-based security solution too.

Showcased at the recent ACM Conference (for computer and communication security) in the US city of Dallas, Texas, VibWrite’s US-based developers claim that it works because of the unique physiology of each person’s fingers and the device’s ability to detect and identify this. As the bone structure of every finger is slightly different to every other’s, an individual finger applies a slightly different pressure on a surface. All of which means that VibWrite’s tech is so smart its sensors can appreciate these subtle physiological and behavioural variations, thus enabling it to authenticate the person using it.

Moreover, because the technology involved in this vibration-detection-and-identification doesn’t require the complex hardware installation and regular maintenance necessary for currently popular security products (which feature the likes of cameras, cards, fingerprint readers and intercoms), VibWrite’s creators are adamant it should make for a relatively cheap alternative. In fact, they believe their device, once it makes it to market, could be at least 10 times cheaper for the consumer than smart access systems relying on fingerprinting and iris-recognition. Their creation, they believe, would only need a vibration motor and a receiver in terms of smart tech, thus requiring minimal power to operate the device.

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The proof’s in the pudding

Evidently, as VibWrite is only partway through its testing process, more assessment needs to be done to ascertain whether it really can achieve its potential – and become the next big thing in the touch-ID security market and, more pertinently for us here at In Car Music, in the car alarm installation market.

So far, the device has undergone two trials, as far is known, in which it was able to accurately identify users 95% of the time (its false positive rate being below 3%). Obviously, these are very encouraging statistics, but they’re only two trials; before it becomes a product, it needs to successfully come through outdoor testing and assessments that take into account different air temperatures, humidity, wind speeds, dust and dirt levels and more. Plus, its developer team claim its hardware needs refining and its authentication algorithms upgrading.

So, yes, it appears to be a little way off making it into high-street stores and becoming available through online retailers – yet the developers are hoping that’ll be a mere two years away. Watch this space…