Android Garage Door Opener, part 2

[brad]

This is a follow-up to my previous post to say:

SO. FUCKING. AWESOME.

I got it all working. I now have an Android Activity (GarageDoorActivity) which interacts with an Android Service I wrote (InRangeService), letting me start and stop the service's wifi scanning task. The service gets the system WifiManager, holds a WifiLock to keep the radio

Comments

ours isn't nearly as fancy

[evan]

Yesterday when I walked home there was some kids sitting on my stoop. I stopped in front of them and fumbled with my bag to pull out my phone and they gave me a quizzical look. Then I hit the button to open my front door and they gave me an even more quizzical look as the door buzzer buzzed.

Re: ours isn't nearly as fancy

[mart]

I got a look much like that when I was staying at Brad's. I left the house in the morning through the garage and crossed over to the other side of the street where reception is better for some reason, then looked back at the house and fumbled with my phone a bit to close the door. A guy who was waiting by a car on the sidewalk looked like he was about to ask about it but then he got into his car and drove away.

The weird thing is that it seems that phone-controlled doors aren't that unusual. The apartment block I'm in right now has a phone-accessible door control that I can in theory call and press 9 to open the door, though they use caller-id as the access control and I've not told them my number so I've not tried it out. I think the intended way to use it is for the door to call you and you to let other people in, but according to the instructions it works both ways.

Re: ours isn't nearly as fancy

[sajith]

Caller ID can be spoofed trivially... all you need is Asterisk and a SIP (PRI also perhaps?) provider that allows/ignores that sort of thing. AFAIK there is legislation against this in the US, and only in the US. Ah, the possibilities!

[ciphergoth]

Does stopping the bike, getting your phone out, finding the activity, pressing the button, putting your phone away, starting up the bike again and putting it in the garage actually save you any time over driving to your home, dismounting in front of the door, opening the garage door and wheeling your bike in?

Of course, that's not entirely the point, but still...

[mart]

Presumably in practice this would be activated before Brad heads home from somewhere else, so the extra stop wouldn't be necessary. I assume he did it this way for the test just because home was both the source and the destination.

[ciphergoth]

But that means the door sits open throughout his journey, which seems to defeat the purpose...

[mart]

The previous version was as you describe; you had to pull the phone out while near the house and explicitly open the door. The thing that's new about Brad's Android app is that it figures out using wi-fi signals when Brad is approaching his house, so even if he turns it on an hour before it won't actually open until he's close by. This isn't possible on other phones because they don't let you get access to the wi-fi bits to do AP scanning.

Posting source online?

[anonymous]

Brad,

Will you be posting the source online?

Re: Posting source online?

[brad]

If I do, it won't include the secret key for my garage door server. :)

[muerte]

$geek_points += 100;

Battery life?

[ext_130285]

What does keeping the wifi manager open do to your overall battery life?

Re: Battery life?

[brad]

Don't know or really care: it's only for a few minutes, and once I'm home I'll just be charging it anyway. And since I only activate the scan once I'm heading home.... well, it all works out.