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I know you specifically asked about the YC startup, but there are a few really cool lock-related startups out there. There have been a lot of NFC (near-field c
by daeken 16y ago
I know you specifically asked about the YC startup, but there are a few really cool lock-related startups out there. There have been a lot of NFC (near-field communication) startups popping up for the last few years, but those require special hardware in the phone, so a company (I can't recall which one at the moment -- sorry) came up with a novel approach: have an app on the phone that plays a series of tones on the speaker, which the lock receives and uses as an audio key. While this could very well be dangerous if not designed properly, it's a really novel approach, and could very well be more secure than existing electronic locks; I know that in the hotel lock industry at least, security is horrendous as it stands, so hopefully this could help there.
- rdl 16y agoI stayed at the airbnb corporate apartment and mentioned a reprogrammable lock as an awesome upgrade to their service back in 2009. I hacked something crappy together with a schlage lockset for my own use, but ended up having to go to Afghanistan a couple weeks later. I actually prefer the usability of what I had to how the lockitron appears to work. Hotel locks are amazingly lame. Audio is an interesting output from the phone; flashing the display in front of a photosensor in a pattern would be cool too. Mechanical locks are basically obsolete in the age of digital photographs and rapid prototyping...if you let me look at a mechanical key for a second, I can make you a perfect copy in 15 minutes.
- metageek 16y ago>have an app on the phone that plays a series of tones on the speaker, which the lock receives and uses as an audio key The series would have to be time-dependent, or you'd be vulnerable to replay attacks. Or maybe the lock plays a challenge and the phone plays the response.