[pg]

We use Lockitron on our offices and it has saved us a lot of trouble. Empirically people are a lot less likely to forget their phone than to forget keys, presumably because you use your phone for so many other things whereas most keys do nothing but get you into a single building.

[urza]

My problem with solution like this is the centralization. I dont want to give power over my door to any one commercial entity. I am sure people behind this project are all nice and likable. And it looks like really neat solution feature-wise. But I dont like the principle. Centralization is never good. You dont know the future of the companny, but your doors depend on it to certain degree. Plus it is a single point of failure and added security risk.

But then again, I dont use facebook, dropbox or gmail for the same reason. (Instead I use selfhosted solutions.) So I am an unimportant minority. Its a pity that the trend with new solutions is towards use of centralization instead of decetralization, which gave us Internet, email and even parlament democracy. As I sad before, if email were to be invented today it would be single company's project backed by YC that would rule us all.

[modeless]

From their FAQ: "if you would like to access Lockitron only via your local network, then we welcome you to flash your base-station with a new image that gives you full access to develop as you see fit"

So you can still use the hardware even if you don't like their software.

[run4yourlives]

Come on, there are probably hundreds of locksmiths in your city right now that could gain access to your front door in a matter of seconds.

Given the portability of the device, it's doubtful that lockitron even knows what it's unlocking at any given time.

[larrys]

"it's doubtful that lockitron even knows what it's unlocking"

What about if they have a security breach and a command is issued to unlock all locks (or a large number of locks) not a specific target.

Then you have a bunch of doors that are open and the chance certainly exists that random people will enter those doors because they are unlocked.

[tedunangst]

While I have seen people walking around and trying doors, it's rare and it attracts a lot of attention. There's something of a herd immunity effect from door locking. As long as most doors are locked, a couple unlocked doors don't matter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/garden/14nolock.html?_r=0

[mbreese]

While a trained locksmith could probably get past my deadbolt, a random hacker from $current_unpopular_country can't. (Note: this isn't counting non-locksmiths that can also pick a lock). So, using something like this does carry a bigger (if slight) risk. I'm not sure if I'd necessarily trust a relatively new company with controlling my deadbolt.

Then again, I also have a similar setup using an HID tag reader/arduino/relay to control access to my garage door, so it's not like I'm against the technology. It's more that I'm worried about outsourcing the security of my house.

Honestly, the threat profile to me personally is pretty low, but it's still not something I'm 100% comfortable with.

[bdunbar]

I might be missing something.

J. Random Hacker from Waziristan hacks your account at the lock company.

So? He is _there_ and you are _here_. Annoying but not fatal.

Unless you're worried that he has a cousin in town?

[larrys]

He does it just for kicks. And he does it for multiple targets. The more targets, the more chance he gets to read about his success in the news.

[run4yourlives]

This is more a business problem for Lockitron than a credible threat to my security as a customer.

99.99% of the time, the only people that touch my front doorknob have keys.

[tripzilch]

Hey, some of my best friends are from $current_unpopular_country!!

[samstave]

There are some people even who carry lockpicks and locks and practice picking for sport and they are all over, like on /r/lockpicking and on places like HN....

I don't know who these people might be - but I know they are out there.

[pmr_]

I have been thinking about how to move self-hosted solutions more into the mainstream. Nearly every company already has some form of hosting that can be utilized for this. Every household has a router that can serve as a miniature data center. The problem seems to be the heavy maintenance but I don't see how this cannot be proliferated the same way it has been done for applications on mobile platforms.

[izak30]

Did you build your current lock by hand? Did you at least disassemble it and figure out that there isn't a master key that would grant entry? How far do you take this?

Maybe having your locks NAT out or phone home to a third party is a bit much for a lot of people, as it opens new vectors, but you know, bricks and windows and such.

[larrys]

"Empirically people are a lot less likely to forget their phone than to forget keys,"

That also varies on whether you drive a car or take public transportation.

If you drive, leaving your house requires taking your keys and it becomes a habit. Same with leaving work. If you drove there you need your keys to leave.

A good way around forgetting keys also is a realtor style lockbox either on the door or hidden with a spare key.

[rdl]

Yeah, I forget my phone way more than I forget keys, because I need the keys to open (NFC/HID) the door to the garage and to use the car. I use a deadbolt so I can't lock myself out of the apartment, but also can't go into the garage without keys, and I ~never go out the front door. I end up leaving my phone docked in my car about 10% of the time by accident, though.

The key (heh) to not forgetting anything, though, is to have a consistent set of pockets for things -- I always keep keys+knife, flashlight, wallet+cash, iphone in specific pockets. The only times I get screwed up is when I wear clothing without the right layout of pockets.

[tomsaffell]

Totally agreed on the pocket layout - don't know what i'd do without my cargo pants/shorts - must be an engineer thing... http://xkcd.com/806/

[alexsb92]

Ever since I discovered the keep-things-in-the-same-pocket trick a few years back, the number of times I forget stuff at home got to virtually zero. When it's time to leave, all I have to do is slap all of my pockets to get a feel for what's in them, and that's it I'm done.

Regarding the different pocket layout, I've also limited myself to just using the main ones for my day to day stuff, so two front and two back. Though when i wear cargo pants or shorts I do put my wallet on the pocket halfway my leg as it's more comfortable with sitting.

[maxerickson]

I occasionally spend a few minutes looking for something that I have placed in the wrong pocket.

[samstave]

I have panicked several times after I put my MIFI device in my pants pocket instead of its specific pocket in my backpack. And the same when I place my wallet in my front pocket instead of the back after a transaction.

[rdl]

Yeah -- I was even more OCD with my tactical vest, pants, etc. Basically every square inch of MOLLE had a purpose, and needed to work when standing or when prone on the floor (during incoming), etc. And you do weird things like put a first aid kit with standard layout in a standard location (to be used on YOU if injured), and I had my real medical kit in a different position (which I'd use on anyone else, or on myself).

My car's trunk is similarly organized with a trauma bag, fire extinguisher, crowbar, etc.

[samstave]

Heh, I am constantly fretting over the pacticality of the location and contents of my Go Gear...

I am checking and practicing grabbing [defensive item] often, worried that I am testing it wrong, i.e. that if it happens where I need that [defensive item] that I have placed it in a non-practical place.

I'd love to have a security consultant review my go plans and assist.

My moms house was broken into last night, and she awoke to someone stealing her laptop. She was just diagnosed with cancer and has a trach in right now - so it was super scary for her - because even in that instance, she cant even yell for help. The ADP alarm system failed her and my brother was MIA.

PROTIP: I go to the DAISO Japan store and buy little cargo zipper bags to organize all my tech work gear. Console cables, dsiplay adapters, USB charges etc in one - zip ties velcro, sticky-velcro etc in another. laptop chargers in others...

The DAISO store in SF Japan town is amazing for just this sort of thing.

[chacham15]

Ha, the locations of all our equipment was boiled down to a science in my unit. For example, the tourniquet was in the left side because the left was more difficult to access in prone because we cant remove our right hands from the gun and we need the left elbow for stability. (For non-military people, the tourniquet that a person carries is used on him in case of emergency so he himself should rarely need to access it).

[majormajor]

Except for a year in a dorm where I couldn't disable my dorm room door's automatically-lock-when-shut behavior, I've developed a simple habit that's kept me from ever locking myself out of my car or home since: never lock the place/vehicle from the inside, or let it lock itself. I can't lock the deadbolt on my apartment when I leave without the key. And I can't lock my car from outside without the key. It's a way of forcing me to always have my keys.

So while I love the convenience this idea provides for shared access to places, and for frictionless don't-even-have-to-get-out-my-keys access, locking oneself out is a solved problem in my book. (Sure, I could lose my keys, but I could also lose my phone—and the redundancy here is another nice and fun thing provided by this system.)

(This habit was largely inspired by getting a car which refused to let me lock myself out: if I pushed the lock button down on the driver's door while the door was open, and then shut the door, it unlocked itself. Previously I'd had one where you held the handle out to override this behavior, but this one insisted on being locked from the outside. And then I noticed that this was keeping my from locking myself out like I had a few times with the old one.)

[anonymouz]

The automatically-lock-when-shut behavior of doors is an extremely weak protection anyway, so one should always lock the door with a key anyway (this at least prevents the most trivial circumvention, i.e., open the door with a plastic card).

Interestingly I seem to use more or less the converse of your method, also with great success: Always lock the apartment door from the inside. Whenever I leave the apartment, I therefore am forced to take the keys.

I suppose the most important thing is to be consistent with ones behavior, so that a subconscious habit can develop.

[cwe]

Since all the YC partners are using boosted boards to longboard to the office, I bet this comes in handy. I know I wouldn't want a giant key chain in my pocket while riding.

[samstave]

I bike to work and my wife is a stay at home mom. I pretty much never carry keys on me.

I ALWAYS have my phone though. Quite frankly, I look forward to the day when my phone replaces my access badge/key-card at work.

Of course there is the arguement "but someone could take your phone and access the MDF!" -- well they can always steal my access badge as well.

I have forgotten my badge countless times in my career though I have forgotten my phone all of once.

[stephengillie]

If your phone is iPhone-ish in size, you may try what I did. After getting a stiff-rubberized phone case (you stretch it around the phone), tape the cards to the case. If you cut a notch in an old card, you can have that be the card against the tape -- the rest of the cards can slide in and out against that card or the phone, and are held in by the force of the tape.

I call it the PhoneWallet. I made one for my droid Incredible.

[stephengillie]

I'm really interested in seeing a car lock like Lockitron.

"Empirically people are a lot less likely to forget their phone than to forget keys..."

Especially with the PhoneWallet. I have my keycard, ID, and ORCA all conveniently on the back of my phone. The same tap gets me into work and pays bus fares. If I didn't have to carry a car key, I would just carry that 1 item.

[brendten]

You should check out Mavia (mavizon.com). I have worked with these guys as a contractor in the past, and they've got a really cool product for cars. The first version is coming out in the next few months, and doesn't have "car control" yet. It has all kinds of neat location and OBDII diagnostics features right now. Car control (unlock doors, start the car, etc.) is the next big feature.

[rtkwe]

Some cars already have that built in. It's a per manufacturer thing though.

[stephengillie]

I've seen Lexuses (Lexii?) with the keyless device that unlocks with proximity. Maybe a bluetooth pairing that unlocks when your phone is near?

All I'm looking for is one less item to carry, one less object in my life.

[001sky]

I've seen and used these as well. They are OK, but you need to still remember to bring the key-fob. Because it does not come out of the pocket/purse nearly as much, makes it (oddly) somewhat of a PITA to keep an eye on. Example: I read one time of a guy having this on his (Ducati?) Moto and after filling up at the petrol, drove back into his hometown to the Local pub. Later, Bike no longer works, has to have the tow truck come to take him home. What happened? He left the fob on top of the petrol dispenser. He was close enough to start and take off, but as he left, he "lost" the key. But never noticed, as bike worked fine (and it was not visible normally unlike a regular key, etc). Ergo, him stranded. Expensive mistake. Moral of the story is if you don't use it, you lose it. =]

[jonknee]

My car (a Hyundai) is keyless like that so you just need the key to be on your person. There's no technical reason why this couldn't be done with NFC on a mobile phone, but I think the excuse would be about car thefts. Modern cars all use chipped keys that are really stringently tied to dealers and car thefts have plummeted during recent years.

It's a lot more convenient than I would have guessed though, one of the nice bits that I noticed is my car lights up when I walk up to it at night. Not bright, but the LED under the mirror illuminates the ground around the driver side door. Very neat.

[flamingbuffalo]

I think all the new Dodge models (even base trim) have keyless these days as well. Hopefully it it catches on for all makes, it's a pretty nice feature.

[rtkwe]

I think this is the app I was thinking of: http://www.viper.com/smartstart/

[jevinskie]

But the lockbox has been working just fine for hundreds of years and isn't technological enough!

[ChuckMcM]

Remote disable is a killer feature that the lockbox has never really achieved.

[xradionut]

Lockbox + Security system with different pin or code = win

[11185d]

comments like this are a waste of everyone's time

[s_henry_paulson]

I'm interested how you are using the product since it does not seem to be available to the public yet.

[wallawe]

It's a ycombinator backed company:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/13/lockitron-lets-you-unlock-y...

[atlbeer]

Well, I was interested as to why Lockitron had a pre-order page up as I own one as well.

It's differently (visually) than the version that is on the website now but, it's certainly a Lockitron lock which I purchased almost a year ago.

Looks like they are rebooting their company with a new model and fundraising via Kickstarter.

[paulgerhardt]

This is a pre-order page for the second iteration of Lockitron.

The new version comes with two-way communication, Bluetooth 4 for offline access, and a host of other features.

We're not taking money for pre-orders; we're establishing how many to make.

[klochner]

Not quite - looks more like they're just launching a new product and taking pre-orders, no fundraising or rebooting.

[jjb123]

They mention that they must sell 1,000 for them to go into production (near the bottom).

[tylerhowarth]

This is the second version of the Lockitron.

[htmltablesrules]

Empirically? Where is the research?

[Groxx]

Double-check the definition of "empirical", it doesn't mean "based on The Scientific Method":

>based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic

[akent]

"Empirically" still implies more formality than the purely anecdotal evidence presented here, unless there's more to it that pg is not sharing with us.