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Maybe I'm having a brain fart, but I don't see how his solution has accomplished this.
Frankly it'd be way easier for the phone to use its GPS and accelerometer to decide he's on a run and just open the door when it reconnects to the wifi.
First: Cool project! Second: I'm probably missing something, but: Therefore, I would at least need to start a process that would understand my intent to leave How did you solve the "intent" issue? It looks like your solution simply detects when your phone stops responding to pings, and then unlocks the doors when it resumes. This doesn't seem like it would distinguish between "going for a run", "going on a car trip",…
Seems to be in the Flask application: > I wrapped everything up in a small Flask app to serve a simple HTML form on a Raspberry Pi. Clicking Submit launches the start_process function as a background process: Clicking submit is establishing intent. Once intent is established, then it uses the timeout to detect when they've gone, and, later, their return.
Knowing I had left for a run was key to knowing when I had returned from a run, rather than a trip in the car for example. Maybe I'm having a brain fart, but I don't see how his solution has accomplished this. Frankly it'd be way easier for the phone to use its GPS and accelerometer to decide he's on a run and just open the door when it reconnects to the wifi.
Frankly, if he wanted to do something with GPS on his phone, timing anything to the reconnection of WiFi is just worse than sending a signal to a public facing web server when he crosses a geofence.
I wonder if this will continue to work, as some phones (I believe all iPhones by default now, for instance) cycle MAC addresses.
I think that although his approach works, the smarter thing would be to fix a hi-definition camera pointing at his driveway entrance, and use OpenCV/ML/AI[1] to detect that it's him approaching the house and automatically open the garage door. For bonus points he could then rig up a speaker to sing 'welcome home' as well... For even more bonus points, anyone coming up the driveway that isn't him could be greeted by B…
I'm pretty sure a high res camera means you don't need "enhance, zoom in, enhance"
I'm a runner who has also gotten locked out, and my solution was to install a keypad deadbolt on my front door ($100 at Home Depot). Never had a problem since.
I'm really disappointed by all the comments here. OP showed a clever way he gets his garage door to open when he gets home from a run. It's an interesting look into home automation from scratch and exactly the kind of content I come to HN for. This isn't posted in NY Times. He's not advocating everyone should go out and do this because of how much better it's made his life. He's not even claiming that it's necessaril…
But I don't think it solves the problem that prompted it :P if your phone dies on your run, it won't connect to your network and the Flask app won't capture the packets needed. Still, making this hands off is a great step from needing to open an app.
First: Cool project! Second: I'm probably missing something, but: Therefore, I would at least need to start a process that would understand my intent to leave How did you solve the "intent" issue? It looks like your solution simply detects when your phone stops responding to pings, and then unlocks the doors when it resumes. This doesn't seem like it would distinguish between "going for a run", "going on a car trip",…
Seems to be in the Flask application: > I wrapped everything up in a small Flask app to serve a simple HTML form on a Raspberry Pi. Clicking Submit launches the start_process function as a background process: Clicking submit is establishing intent. Once intent is established, then it uses the timeout to detect when they've gone, and, later, their return.
I'm a runner who has also gotten locked out, and my solution was to install a keypad deadbolt on my front door ($100 at Home Depot). Never had a problem since.
Not to say this project isn't cool and fun.