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Lockitron exceeds $2,000,000 in reservations
- theatraine 14y agoHow the device fits over the lock handle reminds me of another device I made to unlock a door. I had to get into a room to reset a router, however the lock was a deadbolt, and I didn't know how to pick it. Using a (heavily bent) coat hanger, I squeezed it through a crack in the top of the door, lowered it with twine until it grasped the lock handle, and then turned the device with some more twine (from under the door) and I was in. Locks that open when the door handle (not a knob) is turned can also be opened relatively easily with coathangers from under the door. Make sure to consider all aspects when making secure systems!
- skeletonjelly 14y agoA lot of doubters when this was launched! Albeit not a jetpack, it's exciting to see the future slowly arrive!
- marvin 14y agoIf you see the comments here, there are still a LOT of doubters. Which surprises me a lot, this product is genius. With so much skepticism, if Lockitron was a stock, I would buy it.
- mattmanser 14y agoCongratulations! Now if you can do the same thing for my gas oven, that's the next 2 mill!
- CKKim 14y agoHaha, completely agree with this sentiment. By far the most attractive thing about this for me is being able to check my phone and immediately assuage that "Oh shoot! Did I lock the front door?" feeling. It's something I've been thinking about a solution to for a while. One of these days I'll get around to making a key cover with a simple mechanical display of which direction the key was last rotated. Cool idea, right?
- mikeknoop 14y ago@Lockitron, I recall the original story going: "We decided to host our own "Kickstarter" because investors did not seem interested and Kickstarter changed their policies." I am curious, have you found that investors have changed their tune due to your successes so far?
- paulgerhardt 14y agoI think you're conflating two stories. Eric from Pebble originally went on Kickstarter because of investor interest. We created our own crowd funding platform because Kickstarter changed their policies. Both stories are detailed here: http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2012/10/what-goes-wrong.html http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2012/10/what-goes-wrong... In both cases, investor interest is a barrier but the core problem seems to be 1) making something people want, 2) finding a platform to tell them it exists, and 3) being able to deliver it. Kickstarter is wonderful for 2).
- anotherbadlogin 14y agoyou + are = you're
- holgersindbaek 14y agoBig congratulations!
- dylanrw 14y agoCongrats gents. :)
- allbombs 14y agoinsane!
- slashedzero 14y agoYou know, I was not impressed until I saw the guy playing the bananas to unlock his door. Now I must have one.
- ucpete 14y agoThis is all really great, but my ISP and router situation is not at 100% uptime and about once a week I need to reset them both. I wouldn't be able to rely on this completely :/
- tlrobinson 14y ago"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."
- Adirael 14y agoFrom their FAQ: If you have an iPhone 4S or iPhone 5, Lockitron will work even if the internet or power go out. And of course, you can always use your original key I guesss it also uses Bluetooth for manual unlock and not only for Sense.
- austinlyons 14y agoWell deserved
- dchichkov 14y agoIt really pays to check how ones company name sounds in different languages. Because in some cases connotations could be not even funny :( For example in russian, lockitron sounds very similar to 'lohotron' which translates as con game, scam etc.
- paulgerhardt 14y agoWas not aware of this connotation - in the event we expand to Russia, should we go with something like 'Lockomatt'? edit: Just looked up 'mat' in Russian. Seems like I'm really, really not having any luck here.
- sakai 14y agoIndeed :)
- akennberg 14y agoLockitron does not sound like lohotron to me in Russian. Not even close.
- kami8845 14y agoThis is a non-issue. Look at MongoDB. If you want to say "You're a retard" in German you'd say "Du bist ein Mongo". Mongo being short for mongoloid and just as `politically incorrect` as retard is in the English speaking world. If anything the name made the product more memorable for me (and I use it almost every day now)
- gggaaahhh 14y agoSo now instead of carrying my keys around I get to carry a phone charger...terrific?
- ChuckMcM 14y agoI always wonder about drive-by trolling. Suggestion to pg, make it so that accounts cannot post their first comment for 24hrs. That said, this sort of complaint is not uncommon, I saw a lot of "Gee why not use a hidey hole? or a camo-rock?" and the answer is, of course, that for the use case these folks are targeting divulging the secret hiding space to a temporary renter means you need a new hiding space for the next one. So much easier to just delete their access code. I didn't realize quite how much this industry needed to be disrupted until I went out and added fob based locks to our offices here at Blekko. What I want is a self contained solution, I know I can hack one together with a few arduinos and RFID readers and a closet web server type app on a Raspberry pi, but nobody sells that. And some of the components are poorly documented (as it the general rule for "security" stuff it seems) for this reason alone I cheer on the Lockitron guys and look forward to their Enterprise product.
- kami8845 14y agoAs long as they're obviously dumbasses I don't mind their just getting down-voted to the bottom. Not much harm done and they'll get `dead`ed before too long.
- lotharbot 14y ago> " Suggestion to pg, make it so that accounts cannot post their first comment for 24hrs." Two problems with this approach: 1) if someone's post happens to make it big on HN and they discover us through their logs, they can't give feedback while their posts is still on the frontpage. 2) HN has a long tradition of throwaway accounts [0] being used to give valuable input in sensitive discussions (abuse, corruption, medical, financial, family/social, or legally dangerous.) A waiting period means those contributions won't be made, or at the very least, won't be seen by the majority of readers. The price of getting rid of drive-by trolling is that we lose these contributions. Seems better to just downvote or flag the trolls, and keep the really excellent stuff. [0] There are some real gems among http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=throwaway&sortby=points+desc http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=throwaway&#...
- gggaaahhh 14y agoSo now instead of carrying my keys around I get to carry a phone charger...terrific?
- gggaaahhh 14y agoSo now instead of carrying my keys around I get to carry a phone charger...terrific?
- paulhauggis 14y agoIs this the same company that was on the Shark tank a few months ago?
- nandemo 14y agoFrom http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4699862 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4699862 (also at the front page right now): > We funded the Lockitron guys back in the summer of '09—that's them at their YC interview. A year after YC, they were still figuring out their idea. They lived with the Wepay guys and one day the Wepays had a party for their investors. By that point the Lockitrons were working on a product to lock your door with an iPhone. They were able to impress one of the investors with their prototype, and he asked to have 40 installed in some startup offices he owned. The founders were psyched, but the commercial locks they needed to use cost $500 a pop. They didn't have $20,000 to fulfill an order that big. So they went around to the local locksmiths and scrapyards, buying broken locks for about $10 each. They fixed them themselves and were able to deliver on that order.
- jaytaylor 14y agoInteresting, but this seems similar to the Z-Wave[1]/Schlage Internet-controlled remote entry systems. I'm not sure what the additional value add is beyond an iPhone app. Am I missing something? [1] http://www.z-wave.com/modules/ZwaveStart/ http://www.z-wave.com/modules/ZwaveStart/
- turtlebits 14y agoFor Z-wave, you still need a Z-wave gateway/controller, which can cost several hundred dollars. The Schlage gateway requires a monthly subscription.
- justjimmy 14y agoI've been minimizing the stuff I carry in my pocket for a while now (for every day work). The wallet was the first to go. Then I stopped carrying IDs (I use public transport). Now I'm down to my keys, my phone, a credit card, and a metro pass. The day when all I need is my phone is getting closer!
- go35 14y agodoes your credit card have your picture on it?
- hoprocker 14y ago> Then I stopped carrying Ids I assume you either a) don't drink or b) live in NYC.
- justjimmy 14y agoNeither! Never got the acquired taste for alcohol. And I don't live in NYC - residing in Toronto atm.
- morsch 14y agoThere's a point to be made here about putting all your eggs in one basket...
- gigantor 14y agoPlaying devil's advocate here, but what is the hype surrounding this lock? I bought two 'aesthetic enough' keypad code locks from Home Depot and it' been serving me well since. It doesn't require my phone or launching an app from my phone (think bags of groceries in both hands and you forgot to preunlock), doesn't require Wi-Fi, and I can program temporary codes for Airbnb, etc. within seconds. The only draw back is lacking the option to increase 30 second autolock interval. Add a keypad, make it as rugged as existing locks, place it in the Home Depot lock aisle beside the other 'uncool' locks and you have a disruptive winner.
- zacharycohn 14y agoIt's great because you don't NEED a keypad. Also, for people who rent and can't replace their locks, this gets them all the functionality a keypad lock can give.
- ganley 14y agoNo, but you do NEED a smartphone. So I'm out. Anyway, I have a regular dumb keypad deadbolt on my front door, and that works just fine. I don't have any needs that Lockitron would fill that the current lock doesn't.
- majormajor 14y agoConsider everyone who lives in an apartment who doesn't have the option of replacing their lock (and I wouldn't really want to anyway... I rather prefer the unchanged external appearance of this product). IIRC, you can also easily deauthorize users, so it's also the cheapest way I can think of to retrofit something into being a shared space where you want to be able to control access going forward. It's not the perfect lock solution for every use case, but it's a really cool utility for a lot of purposes.
- lessnonymous 14y agoSo .. it stops physical keys from working?
- lessnonymous 14y agoThis is bananas! Please, someone who has reserved one .. WHY do you need to open your deadbolt from anywhere other than your front door? Do you often find yourself down the street / at work / in an overseas hotel with the need to open the deadbolt? Don't you want to see who's there? Don't you have a second lock built into the knob? It's an interesting idea to control a mechanical object (lock) with an internet connection, but a deadbolt?
- jontas 14y agoI have not ordered one, but here is how I see it: It is a step towards what the world will be like at some future point, when everything about your home (and life) is managed from your phone (or some kind of device). I'm not trying to sound futuristic and sci-fi, but I'm sure we will reach a point where there are no keys, just doors that unlock automatically and open for you based on proximity and identity verification. Does a Lockitron make total sense for everyone to buy today? Probably not. There are obviously some use cases that do justify the expense, however, I see it as an intermediary step on the path to totally rethinking doors and physical access in general. And if you can afford it, and think it is neat and at least somewhat useful, then why not?
- krapp 14y ago> I see it as an intermediary step on the path to totally rethinking doors and physical access in general. I don't believe doors and physical access in general need to be rethought, except maybe to improve the security of physical locks themselves. The 'big dumb thing between you and my stuff you'd need a sledgehammer to get past without a key' model has mostly worked for a good long while. (Or, fine, a crooked bit of wire if you're clever.) Why does that need to be disrupted?
- jontas 14y agoI dont think it needs to be disrupted, and even if it did, I dont think Lockitron is that product. We are moving towards a world where everything is connected, online, and accessible. Doors and keys are not in need of an overhaul, but some day, due to advances in peripheral technologies, having a door unlock automatically is going to just seem obvious. At first it will be something only the newest buildings have, and eventually, old metal keys/locks will be something only the oldest buildings have. Do you believe that doors/locks/keys are going to be unchanged in the next 50 years?
- stcredzero 14y agoLots of folks here "just don't get it" and lots of others think this is great. That is a good sign, startup-wise!
- refurb 14y agoI wonder how strong the actuator is on the device. I know that most deadbolts don't line up all that great with the hole in the frame and require a lot of force to actually open and close. I'm sure the actuator is limited in how much force it can generate.
- abthomson 14y agoThe Kwikset motorized deadbolts have tapered bolts to help compensate for poor alignment. I'm not sure why it's not more common with other locks.
- codenerdz 14y agoAs somebody whose enjoyed a keyless lock in a condo in Hawaii fairly recently I have few things to say. * Keyless locks are great * Depending on a phone is a very limiting requirement. From my experience, it was a huge relief not to have to carry any valuables(such as a smartphone or keys) to the beach, because the door had a 4-digit-code lock device. If i had to carry a phone around with me, i would rather carry a set of keys. Furthermore, if youre planning to use it for AirBnB and youre expecting that your tenants will have cell service, youre excluding international travellers who have just arrived in your town and may not have cell coverage with their international phones. What I would like is a code-based lock that would allow me to reset the code remotely, to add multiple levels of codes, time-limited codes, etc. I would pay lockitron prices for it.
- diminoten 14y agoLockitron is highly hackable, based on the video. A guy made bananas create tones based on pushing on them, and that set of tones opened the lock. You'd buy lockitron at that point as a way to interface with your lock in a more reliable way than whatever you could throw together. Secondly, what do you need cell service for when communicating with a device via bluetooth? Or NFC? Or WiFi? No one's being excluded here except the unimaginative.