Steve Hoefer's device unlocks your front door whenever someone makes the appropriate secret knock. His device fits easily over the inside of your doorknob and look, uses a computer board known as an Arduino to time the knocks that it senses, to match them up with the secret one it's programmed with. If you don't know the secret knock, the door won't open. It's as simple as that.
Just like some of the doors that are locked with numerical pads, this device is really interesting from a safety point of view, as no one can see that your front door is activated this way. There are no signs pointing to this system. No sensors, no numerical pad, nothing but a smart door that can open itself to the right people. With a long enough secret knock, you simply stop people from being able to open this door randomly, without knowing the code.
What's even more amazing is that Steve made this himself. Check out the video and his post on how he did this exactly.
[Grathio via Make, top photo by Alarm Clock, others by Steve Hoefer]
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
I really like this idea.
view sue3465's profile
That's wicked cool, although I probably wouldn't want to use that system if I had lots of neighbours nearby, as there's no real way to prevent people from overhearing.
view azuki_bean's profile
This is great! Even if it was only used on those unfortunate occasions in which you lock yourself out of your house, or lose your keys, it would be much more fun then hiding a spare key somewhere outside your home...not that I do that of course.
view bether's profile
I think this is a clever idea, but I hope that the door could still be opened with a key. It would be awful for the batteries on that system to die and leave you locked out.
view lps's profile