Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone(lockitron.com) |
Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone(lockitron.com) |
Given that the device claims to work with almost any deadbolt, and therefore can't be too picky about shape, my guess is it wouldn't be hard to adapt it for your lock. (Just permanently install a key with some handle attached to it for the device to grip.)
http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/22/after-surviving-the-shark-t...
It looks like this is compatible with through-hole deadbolts, but not rim deadbolts.
This product can be about much more than solving the problem of forgetting your keys. People with limited dexterity (such as my father, a quadriplegic) would love a product like this. When leaving the house, he would be able to make a few taps on an iPad to lock things up. Right now we don't use a lock because it's behind a garage door, but this would allow us much more flexibility.
Regardless, I'm a fan. The fact that granting and revoking access is so trivial meant that when I was an intern I still had full ability to come and go regardless of the presence of a fulltimer (contrasting with other internships, where hesitance to give interns keys meant if I showed up too early I had to sit on my butt till someone arrived to let me in).
I also hope they salt their password hashes.
I can't tell if that is sarcasm?
One issue with the video around 0:40... Lockitron really needs to buy their hardware engineers some eye protection and magnification devices. You should never solder up close like that without eye protection. What they show in the video probably violates OSHA guidelines.
Don't know why they don't do it like that instead of having to send a text...
Will Sense work with multiple phones at a time?
http://today.ucf.edu/ucf-engineering-alum-lands-500000-deal-...
http://abc.go.com/watch/shark-tank/SH559076/VD55203511/week-...
I love the idea of this device, but I also love seeing locks defeated.
A year from now if my phone runs out of battery, I am homeless. :)
Also, with normal keys if you lose one you have to replace the cylinder and all the keys if you're worried about someone using the lost key. This would prevent that expense.
I will say, though: if $150 is the discount price, i'm afraid to learn what the regular price is. Businesses seem like the only place this becomes cost effective.
I hadn't thought about the multiple people access problem since I've never needed more than one set of guest keys at a time, and the offices I've worked in were all big enough to use keycards.
Come to think of it, the market for 'Needs to give multiple people rotating revocable access' is a great fit for AirBnB type services.
I could see spending $150 to get similar functionality plus the ability to unlock my home remotely and check the state of the lock on the only door I enter/exit from.
My family shares a vacation home up north and I'm tempted to buy this for there as well. Because of its proximity to town (two blocks walk) we've already had plenty of trouble with people locking themselves out because they're not taking their car to the tavern in town and simply forgot their keys in the process. We'd have to get in the habit of only using the deadbolt, or replace the door handle with a non-locking door handle, but it might be worth it to me.
Things should never be priced based on actual expense unless your margins are infinitely slim.
It simply doesn't solve a problem I have, and at $150, I'm not likely to give it a shot to see if locking my doors manually is really that much of an inconvenience (I doubt it is). I might pay $50, but even then that's a stretch because, as I said, it doesn't solve a problem I've got.
I know I buy a lot of gadgets I might not otherwise know about due to seeing them in my activity feed on kickstarter.
Seemed to work well for Pebble...
Perhaps that sounds harsh, but there are plenty of products out there that cost a lot of money (much more than $150) which won't bring you any additional value.
The new Lockitron will certainly bring value to a lot of people, including renters.
But then again, I dont use facebook, dropbox or gmail for the same reason. (Instead I use selfhosted solutions.) So I am an unimportant minority. Its a pity that the trend with new solutions is towards use of centralization instead of decetralization, which gave us Internet, email and even parlament democracy. As I sad before, if email were to be invented today it would be single company's project backed by YC that would rule us all.
So you can still use the hardware even if you don't like their software.
Given the portability of the device, it's doubtful that lockitron even knows what it's unlocking at any given time.
Maybe having your locks NAT out or phone home to a third party is a bit much for a lot of people, as it opens new vectors, but you know, bricks and windows and such.
That also varies on whether you drive a car or take public transportation.
If you drive, leaving your house requires taking your keys and it becomes a habit. Same with leaving work. If you drove there you need your keys to leave.
A good way around forgetting keys also is a realtor style lockbox either on the door or hidden with a spare key.
The key (heh) to not forgetting anything, though, is to have a consistent set of pockets for things -- I always keep keys+knife, flashlight, wallet+cash, iphone in specific pockets. The only times I get screwed up is when I wear clothing without the right layout of pockets.
So while I love the convenience this idea provides for shared access to places, and for frictionless don't-even-have-to-get-out-my-keys access, locking oneself out is a solved problem in my book. (Sure, I could lose my keys, but I could also lose my phone—and the redundancy here is another nice and fun thing provided by this system.)
(This habit was largely inspired by getting a car which refused to let me lock myself out: if I pushed the lock button down on the driver's door while the door was open, and then shut the door, it unlocked itself. Previously I'd had one where you held the handle out to override this behavior, but this one insisted on being locked from the outside. And then I noticed that this was keeping my from locking myself out like I had a few times with the old one.)
I ALWAYS have my phone though. Quite frankly, I look forward to the day when my phone replaces my access badge/key-card at work.
Of course there is the arguement "but someone could take your phone and access the MDF!" -- well they can always steal my access badge as well.
I have forgotten my badge countless times in my career though I have forgotten my phone all of once.
"Empirically people are a lot less likely to forget their phone than to forget keys..."
Especially with the PhoneWallet. I have my keycard, ID, and ORCA all conveniently on the back of my phone. The same tap gets me into work and pays bus fares. If I didn't have to carry a car key, I would just carry that 1 item.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/13/lockitron-lets-you-unlock-y...
It's differently (visually) than the version that is on the website now but, it's certainly a Lockitron lock which I purchased almost a year ago.
Looks like they are rebooting their company with a new model and fundraising via Kickstarter.
>based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic
Also, BT 4.0 LE is perfect for this -- since there's no NFC in the iPhone 5, I suspect BT 4.0 LE will end up taking the place of NFC for a lot of "heavier duty" NFC applications -- not that the Bluetooth protocol is great or elegant, but it's a lot easier to work with than NFC, and now BT 4.0 LE exists on both major smartphone platforms.
All my earlier criticism of not having a local ACL and local RF communication to the lock, vs. going to/from the Internet, is now resolved.
The only thing they're missing is a BT 4.0 LE dongle (which I've seen on Kickstarter called "hone" http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/690528216/hone-for-iphon... -- you could put that on your keyring and use it as an expensive HID proxcard replacement. Same thing works for electronic leash.
Now all they need to do is support 5-10 locksets in some kind of private/small business network (vs. putting in a HID access control system), for 0-99 users, and they'll be really innovative. Managing a single door with 0-5 people is comparatively easy; managing an office with turnover is a lot harder, and businesses would happily pay $1-2k for a system to cover their doors and employees with a nice LDAP/AD/FB/etc. interface.
Since you can upload your own firmware, it would be entirely possible for a customer to build this.
your phone working
2.4 Ghz
your internet connection
your power
their datacenter
their website software
anyone in the area could easily ddos off your wireless more or less permanently by spamming disconnect.
doesn't seem like a very good risk/reward ratio to me.
whats the problem with a more traditional (read local) keyless approach? door too thick?
a. Remote entry -- unlock your door from afar. b. A nice home automation system (mine's expanded to control lights and thermostat now) c. Keypad and key-entry as backups
I love it. Being able to remotely lock and unlock your doors is super handy, whether it be for guests, contractors or what not. But what's really handy? Never worrying about locking yourself out of your house again.
If I could just get rid of my car key, I'd be thrilled.
We're headed towards the Internet of Things but right now they're all sort of talking with their own software. A house with the Nest thermometer and the Lockitron lock won't be able to execute on the scenario I described above -- and if you're a homeowner you may want to think more long term than investing in one-off solutions for every latest thing a chip goes in to.
I'm really excited about this -- I've always wanted to do this for my door, but as a renter I can't exactly just change the locks without my landlord being pretty disapproving.
http://consumer.schlage.com/Products/Pages/category-landing....
I had a 4 digit Master lock in 7th grade, and an 8th grader spent a little bit of time with the lock, determined the passcode (chosen at random), and then changed the combination.
I wouldn't put one of these locks on my home, or on anything that I wanted to actually "lock"
Home door locks are a deterrent more than anything else, so I'd opt for convenience.
I also have an RFID fob to get in my building and I need to type a code in to my elevator to get to my floor, so I'm not too worried about it.
I did get a look and was going to make a comment (which I wanted to verify) that the site in no way shows that the company had built another product (at least not from a quick look).
Now I can't even get a look at the site. This isn't 1996. Why are people having so many issues with delivering simple reliability to a 1 page website?
One of the biggest improvements, not offered by the Lockitron, is the lack of needing to fumble in your pockets for anything. If you've got a handful of groceries, it's much easier to shift a bag or two to get a hand free and punch the code than it is to go digging in your pockets.
Did you watch the full video? This version of Lockitron has proximity-based keyless entry like some cars do. No need to reach into your pockets or punch in a code.
*I hate it when people say that so I'll expand. Simply put, I'm worried about it getting hacked. For instance, could you gain access to someone's wifi and then flash a new image (which includes a rogue key) onto the device?
Interesting.. so you don't even need the money for the first production run, pure crowd-hype marketing. Also very ballsy of YC to sidestep kickstarter like this.. although i suppose 1000 pre-sales isn't huge.
As for the product, some nice feature improvements over v1.0, although i'm not a fan of the new plasticy design-- i would not want to see that thing on my door unless I had to, for any price.
what do you mean by 'ballsy to sidestep kickstarter.' has kickstarter become some kind of sole-arbiter of product development? FWIW, if this style of e-commerce continues, someone should develop the API for this/app.net type of sales instead of each building the billing system from scratch.
It could be more clear that the lockitron does two very interesting things, I had to watch the video to figure them out:
- knock detection via microphone so you know someone is at the door (awesome)
- auto-unlock based on nearby phone presence (presumably bluetooth) so you can just walk into your house.
If it works like it's supposed to, this is seriously great.
And when I actually do want to open it remotely, I get a call with a code I can enter. In other words, some sort of 2 step authentication.
And I want to be notified by the app every time that door opens if I am not using the app right then to open it.
Incidentally, this is also just a workaround. It's a hack. It's likely not to work in all homes or with all locks.
Moreover, this thing will likely look out of place and fairly undesirable on most doors, especially on older buildings.
An actual installable lock would be incredibly more compelling due to the fact that it will be less bulky and intrusive.
I would want to understand how Lockitron might use and secure my lock-usage, location, and other personal information before using the device and service to lock anything important, like my office or my house.
1. Wow, that device must have a lot of torque as many deadbolts, mine for example, actually requires some effort to turn, either to lock or unlock. This resistance is caused mainly by the springiness of the weather stripping which pushes back against the door when it is closed.
2. Sometimes, when sunlight falls upon—and heats—the door I need to push or pull slightly on the door in order to turn the deadbolt at all. The door is not dimensionally stable and deadbolt alignment changes. This makes me think that the system would not be reliable. I know my door and deadbolt are not unique in this regard.
Too slow! Well played, Lockitron.
Granted the risk there seems small, basically limited to people without a smart phone who are also in the market for a smart gadget like this.
It is good to see that this is disabled by default, but it seems like a really unnecessary security hole.
However -
- Your website is much to slow. - Remove the whois privacy from your domain. You're a business with a business address. No reason to hide your business location.
We poll infrequently during off hours and more frequently when people are likely to be coming and going. Knocking also wakes it up.
Bluetooth 4.0 gets us the rest of the way. It's instant for iPhone 4s and 5 users and we should have rudimentary support for the Android devices with BT4 by March.
Gas to run
You making sure everything is well maintained
Expensive vs biking
Auto mechanics needed if your car breaks down
Doesn't seem like a very good risk/reward ratio to me.
Kidding aside, you must not have read very carefully, since it has NFC and Bluetooth as backups. The DDOS scenario would require a targeted attack, and wouldn't render it useless anyways as per the above. The device works for renters who can't change their lock, but still want some convenience.
Yes, it has some drawbacks. But I think it is an incredibly well thought out device that I'm jumping on.
Duplicate the a key (drawback: requires original key) Steal car when open (drawback: not many people leave there car open)
How could you break in a key
> (...)
> their datacenter
> their website software
This is a thing I find increasingly bewildering/disturbing about new hacks like that. Why do we route signals around the whole world to communicate two devices that are few meters apart? Also, having to go through third party's computer infrastructure sounds like a huge waste of resources. Bluetooth, NFC or WLANs are the tools we should be using.
The device has BT4, but that doesn't mean there is no value in the wifi.
The standard for secure facilities is 24x7 monitoring and roving patrols which are frequent enough to prevent defeating the lock/door initially. If it takes 1h to cut through a vault door, and you do patrols every 15 minutes, it doesn't matter as much that once you compromise the door, you can subvert the lock for future access.
That said, there's more potential to make an electronic locking system (and seal/tamper evidence) really secure than there is to make a mechanical keylock secure -- keylocks are basically deprecated for even moderately high security, and mechanical combination locks for high security -- the future is all electronic systems with online checking of credentials. A system like lockitron has a lot of room to grow.
The weaker component is the (still available as a backup entry method) keyhole. A year ago, my neighbor locked herself out. I found out that she also had a Schlage lock and figured I'd try to help. After finding my disused bump key, I had sprung her lock after about twenty whacks. My total experience was two hours of practice three years ago. I don't consider myself to be uniquely skilled here.
Personally, I'd prefer a mechanism that would allow me to eliminate the key entirely. I'd rather live with the risk of battery drain/malfunction/phone loss.
"However, if you would like to access Lockitron only via your local network, then we welcome you to flash your base-station with a new image that gives you full access to develop as you see fit"
Obviously I've done about as much research as you so far, so it's very possible the scenario that I describe is unlikely. The point of my initial post was simply to reflect on the fact that in some cases I'd love to use this, and in other cases, maybe not so much.
Interestingly I seem to use more or less the converse of your method, also with great success: Always lock the apartment door from the inside. Whenever I leave the apartment, I therefore am forced to take the keys.
I suppose the most important thing is to be consistent with ones behavior, so that a subconscious habit can develop.
I call it the PhoneWallet. I made one for my droid Incredible.
Break a window (drawback: sets off a car alarm)
Duplicate or steal the a key (drawback: requires original key)
Steal car when open (drawback: not many people leave there car open)
Steal a persons phone (much easier than stealing a key. A phone is taken out more often than a set of keys)
Cut telephone wires for wi-fi (a little extreme, but possible)
Hack there password.
The new version comes with two-way communication, Bluetooth 4 for offline access, and a host of other features.
We're not taking money for pre-orders; we're establishing how many to make.
I can understand people's fear of technology when it is used for security purposes, but if someone wanted to break in, there are easier ways than flashing the base station. All someone would need to do is take a picture of your physical key and they'll be able to make an identical one.
But going back to your original post, at least two of your drawbacks were wrong, and the others seemed to be nay saying for simply the joy of doing so. A DDOS attack on someones wireless to stop them from getting in?
A) Something that wouldn't have affected the lock since Bluetooth and NFC works
B) A targeted scenario that might as well be "well locks don't protect against rocks thrown through windows!
Should we try to innovate on the calculator or go back to using slide rules?
And while that's sad, it doesn't make the calculator less great.
All I'm looking for is one less item to carry, one less object in my life.
It's a lot more convenient than I would have guessed though, one of the nice bits that I noticed is my car lights up when I walk up to it at night. Not bright, but the LED under the mirror illuminates the ground around the driver side door. Very neat.
What if you sold a separate device that plugged in the wall and had a constant wifi connection, then used BT4 for communicating with the lock powered by 4xAA? Then you wouldn't even need wifi on the lock.
Also, why an arduino mega? Are you using that many I/O pins or is it because your code needs the 256KB of flash?
In the video they said they were using a mega, and you can tell from the picture that the atmel chip is a surface mount similar to the 2560. All the arduino chips use some kind of atmega variant, but the arduino mega refers to the atmega1280 or the atmega2560. The most common arduino chip is the atmega328p.
The atmega series is fairly broad. The arduinos only use a subset of the atmega series. "mega" is probably a bit confusing, but if you say "arduino mega" it only refers to one or two specific chips -- the old "arduino mega" used the atmega1280 while the newer model uses the atmega2560.
Remotely unlocking my doors? I feel unsafe already from the mere idea :) :) It'd be different for an office but there's an emotional thing with my home, I'd just be worried. If I lock it again, maybe the door was ajar and it couldn't lock? But I can't see because I'm not there!
My dad has a casita on his house that he frequently lets people use. Dealing with the key is always annoying, though. With this, he could say "My son will be here on the 10th-14th, my nephew will be here the 21st and 22nd, etc" and never have to worry that the key gets lost or copied.
Now they just need to tie in with alarm systems so it will deactivate the alarm at the same time it unlocks it (or at least provide a temporary code that the guest can use).
How about If you're a carpenter, you tend to make things out of wood."
You can make a lot of stuff out of wood, if you're good. You need relatively few general purpose tools. It's not always the best, but in many cases it's good enough. The first Apple had a wooden body. Early cars too.
Technology is giving us a lot of stuff which we call "tools" but we might also call "materials." Like physical tools and materials, they all take time to learn and much longer to understand well. Sometimes we use chisels & planks when welding pipes or casting iron would be better because we have a woodworking setup in the garage.
How about If you're a carpenter, you tend to make things out of wood."
You can make a lot of stuff out of wood, if you're good. You need relatively few general purpose tools. It's not always the best, but in many cases it's good enough. The first Apple had a wooden body. Early cars too.
Regarding the different pocket layout, I've also limited myself to just using the main ones for my day to day stuff, so two front and two back. Though when i wear cargo pants or shorts I do put my wallet on the pocket halfway my leg as it's more comfortable with sitting.
My car's trunk is similarly organized with a trauma bag, fire extinguisher, crowbar, etc.
If the order really doesn't matter, then that counts combinations twice (1234, 1243..). There are 10000 possible 4-digit codes, 5040 permutations, and actually 210 combinations.
What about if they have a security breach and a command is issued to unlock all locks (or a large number of locks) not a specific target.
Then you have a bunch of doors that are open and the chance certainly exists that random people will enter those doors because they are unlocked.
Then again, I also have a similar setup using an HID tag reader/arduino/relay to control access to my garage door, so it's not like I'm against the technology. It's more that I'm worried about outsourcing the security of my house.
Honestly, the threat profile to me personally is pretty low, but it's still not something I'm 100% comfortable with.
J. Random Hacker from Waziristan hacks your account at the lock company.
So? He is _there_ and you are _here_. Annoying but not fatal.
Unless you're worried that he has a cousin in town?
I don't know who these people might be - but I know they are out there.
99.99% of the time, the only people that touch my front doorknob have keys.
I understand the point you are making. But I think the perception here is important as well. And even though the probability of someone opening the door is quite slim people still lock doors anyway. Irrationality plays into this. People lock bathroom doors even though only part of the time they are exposed in any way shape or form. Most of the time they are only sitting down on the toilet seat (or if a many perhaps standing for a brief period).
Personally on the one hand I agree with you and rationally it isn't a credible threat. But what if I am away on vacation and the door is unlocked during that week that I am away and I don't know about it? How comfortable do I feel with my office door being unlocked for a week? It's a small chance of a big thing happening. (Even if 99.99%).
I am checking and practicing grabbing [defensive item] often, worried that I am testing it wrong, i.e. that if it happens where I need that [defensive item] that I have placed it in a non-practical place.
I'd love to have a security consultant review my go plans and assist.
My moms house was broken into last night, and she awoke to someone stealing her laptop. She was just diagnosed with cancer and has a trach in right now - so it was super scary for her - because even in that instance, she cant even yell for help. The ADP alarm system failed her and my brother was MIA.
PROTIP: I go to the DAISO Japan store and buy little cargo zipper bags to organize all my tech work gear. Console cables, dsiplay adapters, USB charges etc in one - zip ties velcro, sticky-velcro etc in another. laptop chargers in others...
The DAISO store in SF Japan town is amazing for just this sort of thing.
I have kids - so I need to have things protected in multiple ways.
Not like the days of being single and you can just have [dangerous item] in the bedside table.
The ultra-badass thing to do was to pre-apply CAT tourniquets (loose) to all 4 limbs, so the operator could then tighten them when hit and continue in the fight. An 18D would then periodically loosen them, keeping the limb from being lost, and monitoring/timing for sepsis (which is the risk of leaving a tourniquet tight, letting tissue die, and then loosening outside of a hospital setting -- I think it's hyperkalemia and some other stuff too. I think the rule is 30 minutes of blood flow per 2 hours for up to 24h, but this was evolving at the time. It worked better for immediate response than relying just on direct pressure (israeli bandage, etc.), since it could be accomplished in 5 seconds directly by the operator (it's hard to even FIND where entrance and exit wounds are under a uniform, and sometimes there are multiple per patient per incident, although usually on the same limb).
It was fine when OCF-I, etc. people did it, but then utterly hilarious when random people copied them without understanding (not even infantry, but supply guys going on outside the wire road trips between bases returning from R&R...).
It was a lot like startups -- people learning as they went, in a rapidly evolving environment. The big fail, IMO, was rotating whole units out ever 4, 7, 12, or 15 months to have to re-learn everything again, and then sending them to an entirely different place when they returned. The British Empire system of rotating individual battalions or brigades through a unit which was permanently stationed in the occupied territory made a lot more sense I think.
Well, my situation was a bit different as I was in a special forces unit. For one, we had no women.
>The ultra-badass thing to do was to pre-apply CAT tourniquets (loose) to all 4 limbs, so the operator could then tighten them when hit and continue in the fight.
We've had this practice, but when you have a tourniquet(properly tied, cutting off all flow) on a limb, you have little to no control over it (to test this, tie a tourniquet just above your bicep and try to open and close your hand when it has no pulse). The only thing you can do is use other limbs to make up for the lost one. Furthermore, if that limb is a leg (the thigh in particular), in order to fully cut off the flow, it is necessary to apply so much pressure so as to break the bone (which sucks, but is better than dying). Lastly, even if the situation were dire enough to warrant these measures, where would you place the tourniquet on the limb? This is a problem for a few reasons. For example, I dont know about your unit but in mine, anything on us gets beaten up a lot for various reasons; damage to the tourniquet would be likely and problematic. Furthermore, during an exercise, the amount of blood that flows through your muscles increases thereby expanding the size of the limb. This would cut off blood flow and inhibit performance if you had a loosely tied tourniquet on it. If you resize it to be larger, then it would slip and fall in times of inactivity. Lastly, and this might also be a difference between units, we arent allowed to wear any bright colors, reflective mattes, sharp contracting colores, or have anything on us which identifiably changes our shape so as to mitigate detection. As I said, when it comes to the equipment (especially the medical equipment) everything is boiled down to a science.
>It worked better for immediate response than relying just on direct pressure
This is true, but the problem is the loss of use of the limb. If you are in a situation where you absolutely need to move quickly, a direct pressure solution to slow the bleeding until you are in a relatively safe area where you can then apply a tourniquet is better. A lot of the decisions you have to make are a balancing act of speed versus safety.
>but then utterly hilarious when random people copied them without understanding
This is very true. The number one mistake I see people who havent been trained to use a tourniquet make is they tie it (however poorly) on the injury. You are supposed to tie it 4 fingers above the injury because veins are elastic and when severed they jump back into the body, so you need to account for that and tie it higher.
Sorry if I went on too much, I just really like that so much thought has been put into every decision that we take for granted; if only we knew.
I'm not sure if I'd trust it to resist serious attack, but chording it a few times gives a reasonably large keyspace, opens quickly, and presents the weapon (loaded and chambered, no external manual safety on the glock 19) in a consistent position for drawing, so it's faster than just leaving it loose in a drawer.
In my trailer or tent in Iraq/Afghanistan, I just put a spare holster between the mattress and bedframe and slept with it there, which worked well, but was a higher risk environment and zero legal risk.
The most interesting thing I saw in 8 years was working with the guys from the Institute for Surgical Research (ISR), making sure they got x-rays and CTs of all injuries, so they could have a team of doctors go through and figure out which equipment and weapons worked, which didn't, and how various pre and in-hospital interventions ended up over a statistically significant number of patients. I'd still rather have USA/USN/USAF trauma surgeons than anything I've seen in the civilian world)