Lockitron: $500K of Reservations in One Day • Hacker News Board

Re: Lockitron: $500K of Reservations in One Day

#51

Post by matthew-wegner » Wed, Oct 03, 2012, 11:55 PM UTC

paulgerhardt wrote: post #10

tzs wrote: post #4

I'm concerned about this feature, described on their home page: > If you use an iPhone 4S or iPhone 5, you can enable Lockitron to sense when you walk up to the door and unlock for you using Bluetooth 4.0. We call it Sense. Can it sense which side of the door you are on? If I'm coming in from outside, then having the door unlock as I approach would be useful. If I'm going to the door from inside, to look through the…

We're experimenting with this feature and really want it to work. We will keep refining it going forward. One really needs two radios or some very clever math to determine which side of the door one is on. What we have done for our development version is set it up so it can be in one of three modes. Always on (for passageways) so it consistently locks as you walk up and unlocks as you walk away. Always off (always di…

For what it's worth, I have some home automation setup that checks for my iPhone's presence on wifi (my phone gets on wifi every ~10 minutes on battery, and holds a connection when plugged in). I preordered a Lockitron, and plan to use the API in my "welcome home" script trigger to unlock the door.

I'm not sure how easily you could implement this sort of detection on Lockitron's end, though. I use a static DHCP lease on my router and simply ping the phone.

Just thinking out loud here! Wifi presence seems super useful from my limited experience, and I'm not sure why more tech things aren't using it.

Re: Lockitron: $500K of Reservations in One Day

#52

Post by artpop » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 12:00 AM UTC

sigh Another non-standards-based IoT device for the short sighted and excitable Kickstarter crowd. An equivalent to the level of interoperability that the web introduced is coming to the IoT space. These proprietary things are and most certainly will become junk.

Re: Lockitron: $500K of Reservations in One Day

#53

Post by niggler » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 12:00 AM UTC

psychotik wrote: post #44

Not that I don't believe the fine folks at Lockitron, just a question about this Kickstarter-on-your-own-site thing that seems to be catching on. Since this isn't audited by an independent company (like Kickstarter) how do you blindly believe what the company says? Doing so would be a smart way to build more buzz, resulting in more success. PS: The blog is down, so I'm not sure if they presented any visual evidence,…

To be fair, it's not clear to what extent Kickstarter was actually auditing projects (in light of the various complaints)

Re: Lockitron: $500K of Reservations in One Day

#54

Post by timbre » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 12:04 AM UTC

Do you keep logs? The idea that you've got a record of every time I've entered or left my house creeps me out enough that I wouldn't use this as a customer. On the other hand, if I were building this, I'd be pretty interested in what I might be able to do with this data.

Re: Lockitron: $500K of Reservations in One Day

#55

Post by arbuge » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 12:04 AM UTC

codeulike wrote: post #23

crazypyro wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to second this. The product looks very flimsy. (This is to say nothing about the actual security it provides.) One would think a more menacing lock that also works really well would also work two-fold as a preventive measure for would-be thieves.

It lives on the inside of the door, I believe. So would-be thieves can't see it.

Not the point - it might do even better if it looked sturder to consumers.

Re: Lockitron: $500K of Reservations in One Day

#56

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 12:04 AM UTC

codeulike wrote: post #23

crazypyro wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to second this. The product looks very flimsy. (This is to say nothing about the actual security it provides.) One would think a more menacing lock that also works really well would also work two-fold as a preventive measure for would-be thieves.

It lives on the inside of the door, I believe. So would-be thieves can't see it.

[deleted]

Re: Lockitron: $500K of Reservations in One Day

#57

Post by nico » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 12:06 AM UTC

ccamrobertson wrote: post #43

nico wrote: post #41

Wow, congratulations to Lockitron!! I stayed with the founders 2 years ago in Palo Alto after Startup School. I remember they opened the door remotely for me when I arrived and there was nobody home, it was amazing. I had lost track of them until now, I'm really glad to see all the interest and support they are getting.

Thank you Nico, it was great to host you. Airbnb'ing with Lockitron was incredibly straightforward.

Thank you for hosting me. Even though briefly, I really enjoyed my stay with you. Congratulations for your hard work and persistance, I hope you guys do great!

Re: Lockitron: $500K of Reservations in One Day

#58

Post by paulgerhardt » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 12:14 AM UTC

artpop wrote: post #52

sigh Another non-standards-based IoT device for the short sighted and excitable Kickstarter crowd. An equivalent to the level of interoperability that the web introduced is coming to the IoT space. These proprietary things are and most certainly will become junk.

TCP/IP/BT4

Re: Lockitron: $500K of Reservations in One Day

#59

Post by paulgerhardt » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 12:22 AM UTC

mcdowall wrote: post #32

Such a great product, this solves a massive problem I have when away and using Airbnb for my flat and having to get my poor mum to have to come round to let them in each time so will definitely be ordering one. p.s as its often difficult to ask on Kickstarter, but out of curiosity, what tools / hardware did you use to create the video, its pretty neat.

We borrowed a (very generous, awesome) friend's Cannon DSLR. And another (very generous, awesome) friends Zoom H4N and Røde Shotgun mic for sound.

Rough cuts were made using iMovie (super low tech but very quick) and once we settled on an approach that was 'working' we polished it up in After Effects.

Most of the trick to "good enough" photography or filming is good lighting. For this we borrowed some other (very generous, awesome) friends' lights. For outdoor shots were we couldn't use artificial lights; we waited till the Magic Hour (dusk). We got a door frame from Home Depot and drove it up to the top of Skyline to get one of the shots with the scenic overview.

Re: Lockitron: $500K of Reservations in One Day

#60

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 12:23 AM UTC

paulgerhardt wrote: post #58

artpop wrote: post #52

sigh Another non-standards-based IoT device for the short sighted and excitable Kickstarter crowd. An equivalent to the level of interoperability that the web introduced is coming to the IoT space. These proprietary things are and most certainly will become junk.

TCP/IP/BT4

[deleted]