[Z]iyan and [Z]achery from the Rochester Institute of Technology are an excited bunch. They came up with a way to open their apartment door with a series of coded taps on their TI Chronos Watch. On the receiving end, at the door, a Ti CC1111 Eval Kit ( CC1111EMK868) is in charge of opening the door when commanded by the watch.
A hobby servo is used as an actuator for opening the door. The door also has an over-ride button which allows you to open in without a watch from inside and also with a key from the outside if something goes wrong. To add to the feature list, there is also an over current detect circuit, through a shunt resistor, which allows the door controller to automatically stop the servo if it draws to much current which means it has stalled.
The website goes in great detail from power consumption to security. Good work guys!
Backup: Code/Schematic/Website
Now, THAT is a great project! Looks like they used very few components other than what came with the Chronos dev kit. This is going on my list of “maybe do this someday”.
wow, the contest just started and such a great project already. one vote from me for these guys!
Installing an automatic gate opener can really add convenience without sacrificing security.
This is typical for engineers (like I am one).
Do you realize that this is very unsafe.
By slipping a well formed metal rod through the door side or bottom you can reach the button and open the door from outside. No
encryption cracking needed.
I know this is just a proof of concept, but sometimes it is good to backcheck if the actual model/concept still fulfills its task or at worst might even weaken it.