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Smart locks are awesome, I have a z-wave lock in my house, hooked up to a home automation system I wrote so that my front door unlocks whenever I walk up to it.
by gmurphy 13y ago
Smart locks are awesome, I have a z-wave lock in my house, hooked up to a home automation system I wrote so that my front door unlocks whenever I walk up to it. I love that I've reduced the "wallet/phone/keys" patdown to "wallet/phone".
Unfortunately, many of the smart locks that use your phone as an unlock mechanism don't have a good solution for what to do when your phone battery runs out. Usually the answer is "use a key", but the new problem is that once enough of your locks are smart, you stop carrying keys.
In the home, keypads work well (and they can easily be set up for guests, etc), but that seems prone to memory error in hotel situations.
- agumonkey 13y agoThese smart-locks are powered ? they could fit a usb plug just in case right ?
- potatolicious 13y agoNot that my home is Fort Knox or anything, but allowing a direct electronic connection between your lock and an unknown external device seems like a bad idea.
- agumonkey 13y agoUnderstood but it doesn't need to be a full power plug, just enough for usb 2.0 devices, maybe with a timeout to avoid leakage. Also really just the power wires, no data, like usb condoms http://int3.cc/products/usbcondoms http://int3.cc/products/usbcondoms .
- maxerickson 13y agoA lot of the locks are powered by AA batteries. I'd rather have a keypad than the cascading inconvenience of having to swap those batteries more often.
- dangrossman 13y ago> Unfortunately, many of the smart locks that use your phone as an unlock mechanism don't have a good solution for what to do when your phone battery runs out. The only z-wave smart locks I've seen carried in national retail stores also have keypads [1,2,3]. Isn't that the solution to the battery problem? What lock do you use? I could never rely on z-wave to open mine; I only use that to automate locking up the house at night in case I forgot. It can take up to 30 seconds for my lock to respond to a z-wave command if it hasn't already been woken by some other event, which is a long time to stand outside your door waiting for it to open for you. 1: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Schlage-Camelot-Aged-Bronze-Touchscreen-Deadbolt-with-Alarm-BE469NX-CAM-716/203814066 http://www.homedepot.com/p/Schlage-Camelot-Aged-Bronze-Touch... 2: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Schlage-Aged-Bronze-Home-Keypad-Deadbolt-with-Nexia-Home-Intelligence-BE369NX-CAM-716/203397806 http://www.homedepot.com/p/Schlage-Aged-Bronze-Home-Keypad-D... 3: http://www.lowes.com/pd_497751-350-910+TRL+ZW+15+SMT+CP_0__?productId=4755138&Ntt=kwikset+910&pl=1¤tURL=%3FNtt%3Dkwikset%2B910&facetInfo= http://www.lowes.com/pd_497751-350-910+TRL+ZW+15+SMT+CP_0__?...
- gmurphy 13y agoYep, z-wave locks have keypads - it's what I have (Yale Real Living), and is a great solution. The problem I was referring to was the new class of Bluetooth-based locks that rely on your phone, but don't have keypads (Lockitron, Kwikset). The lock does have some lag in it, but I just try to keep it awake by pinging it, and rely on early detection of the beacon to get the request in early. Definitely not a great solution though, and I'd love to find something faster.
- deserted 13y agoCould you elaborate on the unlock process with your z-wave lock? Are you using openzwave, RaZberry, MiCasaVerde, or something else?
- gmurphy 13y agoRaZberry. You can see the (hacked-together) code in: https://github.com/glenmurphy/route/blob/master/examples/cambridge/cambridge.js https://github.com/glenmurphy/route/blob/master/examples/cam...