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Lockitron: $500K of Reservations in One Day
- cwe 14y agoBombed. Cached anywhere?
- idigit 14y agoworking here fine.
- tzs 14y agoI'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 peephole to see who is pounding on the door and yelling for me to open it, I would not find it helpful for the door to unlock itself.
- dx4100 14y agoIt probably has a proximity timeout -- if you're out of range for more than x number of minutes, it will consider you 'gone'. It may not be passive, and may send you a request via Bluetooth for unlock. I imagine they have this worked out well enough to advertise it :)
- lotyrin 14y agoThen (as is the answer to many of the security concerns people have with Lockitron) just don't enable that feature. Also, anyone that's seriously worried about the security of this device should be mostly concerned that the standard keyhole still exists on the other side of the door because they're trivial to bump or pick.
- lotso 14y agoTo play devil's advocate, it is less conspicuous to open a door that you can hack open with your phone than it is to pick or bump it (Although depending on your skill, picking it may be a very easy thing too).
- paulgerhardt 14y agoLockitron will send you a message when the door is unlocked, even if it's using a bump key.
- shabble 14y agoI wonder what the minimum viable wifi-jammer is here? Have you considered any sort of pingdom style monitoring for that sort of thing? (Obviously, it's a really unlikely scenario right now, but if they can keep it off the air long enough to open the door and introduce it to Mr Big Hammer, notifications may not be forthcoming :) )
- JonnieCache 14y agoThe minimum viable radio jammer is a high voltage spark. Not very subtle or safe though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-gap_transmitter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-gap_transmitter Building a proper one is still pretty easy. It's carting around a big enough battery that's the problem.
- dgroves 14y agoAndroid phones can be made to do wifi jamming... ;-) Seems convenient all things considered... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwYOtf4fI0Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwYOtf4fI0Q
- paulgerhardt 14y agoWe'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 disabled). Or Manual override. With the Manual override it still unlocks as you approach and locks again as you depart, but it also allows you to lock the door by hand after you come in and will stay locked until you manually unlock it by hand again or send it a direct command from your phone. This way it doesn't unlock randomly while you're walking up to the door to answer it. It's our first pass at making this particular feature happen.
- alasano 14y ago"Always on (for passageways) so it consistently locks as you walk up and unlocks as you walk away." I don't want my door toying with me like this.
- leejoramo 14y agoAt least it doesn't feature Real People Personalities, although I am pretty sure Sirius Cybernetics has a patent on that. ;)
- paulgerhardt 14y agoWe've toyed with the idea...
- WalterSear 14y agoIf you know where I am every few minutes, you can tell whether I am likely to be coming or going.
- atlbeer 14y agoI started to write my own version of this a while back but, it relied on some "server-side" work. I had a daemon running inside my house which looked for my iPhone on the internal WiFi network. When my phone went off-line it signaled that I had "left" and after a certain duration went into "watch-to-unlock" mode. When my phone reappeared on my network I would signal to unlock. I know you are probably trying to keep as much of the logic off the perimeter of your ecosystem (Phone App and in-home hardware) but, it was the best way I could figure it out.
- sksksk 14y agoMaybe a cool feature would be if it didn't unlock automatically, but put it in "unlockable" mode, and would unlock when you knocked on it. You would still have the convenience of unlocking automatically (if your hands are full, use your knee or something), and it wouldn't unlock when you're in the house
- robomartin 14y agoA non-Kickstarter Kickstarter?
- paulgerhardt 14y agoWe don't take the money up front. We're authorizing cards as a minimal low pass filter. Primarily we need to know how many to make (or if anyone wanted one at all!)
- bduerst 14y agoFYI I downloaded your app a couple months ago with the hopes I could use it to replicate my NFC card for my building, but I hit your login-only screen. Can you make an a "Lockitron Labs" app or something similar that allows you to read third party NFC keys and replicate their signal on demand?
- ccamrobertson 14y agoThis would be an incredible feature. Unfortunately, even within NFC the range of standards and encryption types across card types means you can't consistently do this. Our NFC implementation is really the reverse of this - rather than beaming a code, you are reading an NFC tag to trigger your app to send the command.
- mpclark 14y agoActual NFC keys (as implemented on NFC phones) don't work like this -- they are much more secure (think of an exchange of freshly calculated encrypted information rather than broadcasting an unchanging code) and can't be copied.
- bduerst 14y agoWouldn't it be possible to reverse engineer then? If you ping it with several different signals, you can interpret the responses and analyze the encryption - right?
- dx4100 14y agoI'd be interested in how the devices talk to their servers, and if they have control to unlock the devices. It would be smart to have public / private keypairs for each device capable of unlocking, so that even they could potentially not be allowed to unlock it. I want to see if this service gets hacked and someone issues a mass-unlock signal.
- paulgerhardt 14y agoWe'll post an update with more technical details for developers as we approach launch. Sorry to tease!
- savrajsingh 14y agoYeah!!
- KirinDave 14y agoCool product. I'm glad it's being well received. I really hope that this trend we are seeing is the beginning of an explosion in very high tech home automation and improved appliances in America. We're fantastically underserved, we're increasingly able to automate manufacturing of small systems like this, and there is a very popular revival of the small startup DIY culture going on. Because you can imagine lots of otherwise unemployed people learning the basics of programming, microcontrollers, low-voltage digital electronics and servos, and making a ton of incredibly useful, modular stuff. It's not even that wild a dream.
- workhorse 14y agoKudos on the video. I was 50/50 on whether I wanted to buy one, but after the video I had to have one!
- asciimo 14y agoThat dude's hairy chest sold me.
- brianbreslin 14y agoI'd like to see an option for when i don't have my phone on me (keypad).
- Firehed 14y agoYou can still use your physical key (which is probably how you locked the door if you left without your phone)
- coopdog 14y agoI kind of like that it has no external surface. I'd even consider removing the keyhole if it worked well and just having a perfectly smooth door. (would have to auto close the door and have a deadbolt snib thing)
- pxlpshr 14y agoAwesome! I love the concept and will purchase one after I move from a condo with an auto-locking door system, which i loathe! :( From a product design perspective, maybe consider a rock-solid brushed metal version.. if not purely for asethetic appeal for snobs like me, but also to project the sense of security and that's something to think about holistically in your marketing which the website barely touches on. Your device carries a big burden; peace of mind about my family's security — not the replaceable materials within it. I think overall the design looks really good, but something about it feels Fisher-Price. I know that might seem superficial to some but that was my immediate reaction. Congrats on the success!
- crazypyro 14y agoI'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.
- codeulike 14y agoIt lives on the inside of the door, I believe. So would-be thieves can't see it.
- arbuge 14y agoNot the point - it might do even better if it looked sturder to <i>consumers</i>.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- pxlpshr 14y agoIt's installed on the inside of the door, on top of the existing locking system. My comment was mostly about consumer confidence when it's hanging on a j-hook at a retail store, or standing alone through through another distribution outlet.
- milesskorpen 14y agoGreat that the pre-orders have been such a success ... but still, that's ~3-3.5k units. Is that a lot of sales for this kind of product? It sounds low, but I might just be benchmarking off of the digital goods numbers I'm used to hearing.
- binarycrusader 14y agoHas anyone done a thorough security review of the lockitron hardware, etc.? While I know physical locks aren't that secure, people that couldn't get in easily with a physical lock might be able to trivially get in with an electronic one. I wonder if there's been any consideration to tying this in with Google's two-factor-style authentication system?
- wyck 14y agoI agree with the hardware review, my major concern is not the cool digital part but the actual bits and pieces because locks break all the time, and this is essentially adding another layer that can break.
- mcdowall 14y agoSuch 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.
- paulgerhardt 14y agoWe 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.
- rahulvohra 14y agoCongrats guys. I miss our Lockitron :)
- cmwelsh 14y agoWhat theme are you using on Tumblr? It's very simple and clean. I like it.
- nico 14y agoWow, 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.
- ccamrobertson 14y agoThank you Nico, it was great to host you. Airbnb'ing with Lockitron was incredibly straightforward.
- nico 14y agoThank 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!
- psychotik 14y agoNot 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, such as an Amazon screenshot. But that's easily doctored too.
- niggler 14y agoTo be fair, it's not clear to what extent Kickstarter was actually auditing projects (in light of the various complaints)
- dror 14y agoThe amounts are published by Kickstarter and they're the ones collecting the money and passing it to the project, so there's no question that they're correct. The complaints had to do with the delivery of the product after the project was funded.
- paulgerhardt 14y agoWe used a third party payment processor for this reason. We also let people tweet their order number: https://twitter.com/i/#!/search/backer%20number%20lockitron https://twitter.com/i/#!/search/backer%20number%20lockitron
- shykes 14y agoWe had a Lockitron at dotCloud's first San Francisco office. It was great and very gratifying in a "programming the real world" way. Keep it up!
- artpop 14y agosigh 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.
- paulgerhardt 14y agoTCP/IP/BT4
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- timbre 14y agoDo 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.
- tubbo 14y agoBut wouldn't it be cool if you had a record of someone entering your house to kill you? Like imagine if OJ Simpson was a Lockitron customer...
- georgeott 14y agoQuestion: What if the resident just leaves the door open? Can the system tell if the door has been left open? (The lock will still lock and unlock)
- bhudman 14y agoI showed this site to 3 different people and asked them: "How much do you think the product costs?". They all said $149. No where does it say on the main page that it actually costs $295. I found this in the blog at the end of a post: "For $295 and no monthly fees you can order a Lockitron deadbolt kit that can be installed in about 15 minutes". The above statement was part of an answer to "What is Lockitron?". I would have thought that this is the most common FAQ, but it does not exist on the first page. Left a sour taste and am disappointed. Though nothing illegal, certainly deceptive.
- idigit 14y agoAs stated on the homepage, it costs $150. The $295 in the blog footer I believe is referring to the old version of Lockitron. No reason to be disappointed - It clearly states what the new version costs on the homepage.
- rwitoff 14y agoSorry but products are getting mixed up here. There is an older "Lockitron deadbolt kit" that was $295, and that's not what's being pre-ordered here.
- paulgerhardt 14y agoSorry about that! As other commenters have mentioned, that was a holdover from our first generation lock. It has been updated to the correct price now. As confirmation, you can verify through Amazon Payments that cards are only authed for a max charge of $149.
- EGreg 14y agoCan you guys clarify what happens when the lockitron's batteries run low, or the wifi's out, or your server is out? Can I still use regular keys to get into my house? If the wifi is out, can I still use bluetooth to get in?
- ender7 14y agoLokitron looks great, but you guys have got to fix the UI on the unlock screen. Every time I see it I have to stare at it for a couple of seconds to figure out a). what the current state is and b). how to change the current state. The swiping action is neat, but there's nothing in the UI to convey that swiping is what you should do. Also, the paradigm is really screwy -- if the door is unlocked, I swipe the unlock icon to be on top of the lock icon, which then transforms the unlock icon into a lock icon, but leaves a new unlock icon behind in the original place? I think you would be better served by duplicating Apple's standard toggle switch UI (you can flip it to be vertical if you want to). You can also add a progress throbber to the (normally blank) slidable bit if you want to indicate an "intermediate" state.
- nodata 14y agoI wondered that: does an unlock icon show that the door is unlocked, or that I can unlock it?
- joshmangel 14y agoJust bought one for our office. Absolutely love it :) Keep it up guys!
- exolab 14y agoNice product, nice website, nice video. But I wager not many people want to see chest hair in a commercial video.
- francov88 14y agoPretty crazy post! Congrats to the team for launching and making a big splash.
- francov88 14y agoPretty crazy post! Congrats to the team for launching and making a big splash.
- spo81rty 14y agoWhy not just dead bolts with a keypad? I have locks that do that and can be controlled from my phone as well. Sometimes we over engineer things. http://www.kwikset.com/SmartSecurity/Electronic-Locks.aspx http://www.kwikset.com/SmartSecurity/Electronic-Locks.aspx