Will Apple Watch Replace The Keys Of Your Next Tesla?

Apple Inc. AAPL CEO Tim Cook told The Telegraph that the Apple Watch is designed to replace users' car keys. Is this the company's way of saying that Tesla Motors Inc TSLA and other automakers will hand out Apple Watches with every new car? "That's a very good idea," Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry. "I think that is a possibility." Chowdhry referred to the Apple Watch as a "cheap alternative" to the skyrocketing price of modern keys and fobs. He also pointed out that Hyundai once replaced the Equus' paperback manual with brand-new iPads that came pre-loaded with a digital version of the book.

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The Tech Is Ready

"In theory, it could work," Tigress Financial Partners analyst Ivan Feinseth told Benzinga. "The new car key -- you don't have to put it into your car, it just has to be in your pocket. That near field technology could work in the watch." Chowdhry has already seen app developers put this feature into action. "We were at a hackathon [and saw] an application that was able to use Apple Watch to lock the car, unlock the car, [turn on] the lights, honk, get the diagnostics, see how much, tire pressure, that kind of stuff," Chowdhry told Benzinga. "I think [the technology] is already there. I think the reason why we feel Apple Watch will be a phenomenal success is [that] it is providing you convenience." Niles Lawrence, president of stock analysis site Vuru, told Benzinga that Cook's idea is an "interesting concept." "There's a company in Canada, Bionym, working on something sort of similar," he said. "They have this band called the Nymi. Essentially, they do an ECG reading. They read your heartbeat. They use that as an authentication method, so you could use it to unlock your car door, in theory." Lawrence speculated that Apple might be working on a similar concept.

Battery Life Is Still An Issue

No one wants car keys that need to be charged every single day, which could be a problem for Apple's long-awaited smartwatch. "I am now concerned when they say you have to charge the watch daily," said Feinseth. "People are unhappy when the battery on their phone goes to the point where it has to be charged daily. For the most part, people wear watches that are either self-winding or battery-operated and the watch lasts five years. Obviously they're not smartwatches, they're just regular watches." Feinseth also noted the overall decline in consumers that wear watches. "People have slowly stopped wearing watches because they get the time off their phone," he said. "[Smartwatches are] designed to keep your phone in your pocket." Ultimately, Feinseth said that while the car key technology is not unreasonable, "If your watch is dead, you'd be screwed." "That would be a concern," he added. Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.