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In a new announcement, Samsung points out to the public that the Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis car’s digital keys will be public. Previously, the digital keys for these vehicles were Samsung exclusive thanks to their usage of the tech giant’s framework. Now, all three vehicle brands are moving over to use the Google digital key framework for more accessibility.
With the Samsung digital key, Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis vehicles could only use digital key access if the vehicle owner had a Samsung device. This key is stored in the vehicle owner’s Samsung Pay (Wallet) on their smartphone. So instead of pulling out the vehicle’s key to unlock the car, owners could simply pull out their smartphone and unlock their vehicle.
This posed a challenge to owners of the vehicles under consideration that used other smartphone brands. To solve this issue once and for all, Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis are shifting over to use the Google digital key phrase murdered. To make this switch, the vehicle brands in this article will have to wait for a software upgrade.
The upcoming One UI 6.0 software upgrade allows Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis to move over to using Google’s digital key
With the roll-out of the third One UI 6.0 beta, owners of Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis vehicles will notice a major change. Their digital key will no longer use Samsung’s framework, but will instead shift to Google’s framework. Stable software updates to bring this change will become available with the Android 14 and One UI 6.0 stable update.
Because the release of Android 14 is around the corner, owners of the vehicles in question could be expected. This coming change will make their digital keys accessible on any devices that they own. This will come as a relief to lots of Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis owners who don’t have Samsung devices.
At the moment, beta testers of the available One 6.0 software are already getting this change. If these testers own a vehicle from the brand in consideration they can transfer their digital key to any smartphone for usage. The smartphones this new digital key framework works with are numerous.
If you own an Android or Apple device with NFC, Bluetooth LE, and UWB then you’d be able to use the digital key. But if the driver owns a Genesis, reports say that they need to have the existing Genesis Connected Services app. With this app, they’d be able to better benefit from the switch to Google’s digital key framework.
The One UI 6.0 software that’ll bring this feature is still in development, awaiting Android 14 release. This software bringing this digital key change will soon roll out for public usage. Until then, owners of Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis vehicles must exercise a bit of patience while waiting.