3 ms·

Android Garage Door Opener

11 points by kirubakaran 18y ago

zacharydanger 18y ago
Haha. Try running that through Apple's iPhone app submission process. Viva truly open platforms!
- comatose_kid 18y ago
  What would be the problem with this getting on the App Store? As far as I can tell, the guy is just controlling his 802.11 wirelessly enabled garage door via his android phone.
  - kirubakaran 18y ago
    You can't run your app as a background process in iPhone.
  - zacharydanger 18y ago
    On the technical side, the wifi scanner portion of this hack runs as a background process to passively determine when the phone gets near his house. And background processes on the iPhone are a heartily disallowed by Apple. On the pure speculation side, I think you would have to be a lunatic to try and push this kind of hack through the App store's bureaucracy. And I don't imagine his particular setup is common enough to warrant it either.
    - comatose_kid 18y ago
      Thanks - I missed that part. I figured there was no scanning going on until he pressed a button in his app (of course, now that I think about it, that would be a pretty poor user experience). Apple really needs to get over the background app limitation -> a notification API isn't enough to solve this kind of problem.
- noonespecial 18y ago
  That's it exactly. No goofy "app store", no lockdown because "maybe that might interfere with the apple expereince..." Just a skilled user, doing precisely what he wants with his hardware. The true promise of Android, realized.
paul9290 18y ago
Thats cool ... hope you release it!
- jonknee 18y ago
  But then everyone could get into his house... :)
streety 18y ago
I've been considering something like this for the smartphone I don't have in the automated home I also don't have. By mapping the room location by wifi strength and then the direction with an in-built compass it should be possible to 'target' a window on the south wall for instance and with a single press of a button open the blinds. Accelerometers could detect an upward tilt and again with a single press of a button turn on the ceiling light. As I said at the beginning I have no current need for this sort of technology but it's interesting to think about.
- kirubakaran 18y ago
  Sounds awesome. You should go ahead and do it.

11 points by kirubakaran 18y ago

zacharydanger 18y ago

Haha. Try running that through Apple's iPhone app submission process. Viva truly open platforms!

comatose_kid 18y ago
What would be the problem with this getting on the App Store? As far as I can tell, the guy is just controlling his 802.11 wirelessly enabled garage door via his android phone.
- kirubakaran 18y ago
  You can't run your app as a background process in iPhone.
- zacharydanger 18y ago
  On the technical side, the wifi scanner portion of this hack runs as a background process to passively determine when the phone gets near his house. And background processes on the iPhone are a heartily disallowed by Apple. On the pure speculation side, I think you would have to be a lunatic to try and push this kind of hack through the App store's bureaucracy. And I don't imagine his particular setup is common enough to warrant it either.
  - comatose_kid 18y ago
    Thanks - I missed that part. I figured there was no scanning going on until he pressed a button in his app (of course, now that I think about it, that would be a pretty poor user experience). Apple really needs to get over the background app limitation -> a notification API isn't enough to solve this kind of problem.
noonespecial 18y ago
That's it exactly. No goofy "app store", no lockdown because "maybe that might interfere with the apple expereince..." Just a skilled user, doing precisely what he wants with his hardware. The true promise of Android, realized.

paul9290 18y ago

Thats cool ... hope you release it!

jonknee 18y ago
But then everyone could get into his house... :)

streety 18y ago

I've been considering something like this for the smartphone I don't have in the automated home I also don't have. By mapping the room location by wifi strength and then the direction with an in-built compass it should be possible to 'target' a window on the south wall for instance and with a single press of a button open the blinds. Accelerometers could detect an upward tilt and again with a single press of a button turn on the ceiling light. As I said at the beginning I have no current need for this sort of technology but it's interesting to think about.

kirubakaran 18y ago
Sounds awesome. You should go ahead and do it.