My building has replaced our keys with an app | Hacker News Reader

My building has replaced our keys with an app

nytimes.com

210 pointsperihelions374 comments

I've been doing home automation for a long time. I just got a house that I own that I'm excited to jazz out.

That said, I built up an ideology that any automation added should never replace physical items. All automation should have physical kill switches. Any occupants of the home should have appropriate access to things that you would normally give them physical access to.

I implemented walking lights successfully in my old house by replacing switches and doing some neat presence detection (near-field and general) tricks. That mode could be turned off at the front of the house, and frankly I found myself using it because it'd get old sometimes, and other times you really do want all the lights on.

My garage door opener was another. With near 100% accuracy my garage door would open when I was coming down my alley way. It never false opened though, even if I stopped at the grocery store in front of my house. It sometimes failed to open and I actually had to push a button in my car.

Another note, not mentioned here from my skimming, is to never rely on cloud devices. Anything worth doing is worth doing off-line. If your home automation and security can be killed by chopping fiber or coax, then you have neither reliable automation or security. There's infinite options for off-line applications and liquidated DC servers are stupidly cheap to purchase.

Last, if you're going to do home automation, make sure you start by building it on a separate network from your browsing network (preferably air gapped) - especially if you intend on using WiFi devices. They will crowd and slow down your network. Vary your solutions. Put some on LoRa, some on WiFi, some on Ethernet, some on ZWave, etc...

We rented an airbnb, very nice, very luxurious. Had motion activated lights everywhere. We slept with the light on because it malfunctioned and there was no physical switch to turn it off -- we actually called the owner and he said there is no need, "they will turn off automatically".

It is funny people can't envision things breaking...

(And before you ask, the light was in a corridor but there was no door to the bedroom. The switch was stuck on because it was broken not because it overlooked the bed -- it did not)

> It is funny people can't envision things breaking...

This is what enraged me about the Therac-25 design which ended up killing people. There's a whole report to read on the design, failure and follow up but to paraphrase the designers eliminated the physical locking mechanism and had this attitude that "oh it's electronic so it won't wear out and fail".

Therac-25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25

Software errors killing people with excessive radiation doses.

It's a bit sad to see it coming up to regularly. On the one hand it's a very classic example of programming bugs leading to injury and death. On the other hand it's so long ago that bringing it up so often makes it seem like it's the only good example of dangerous software. Software must be pretty amazing and safe that we have to keep bringing up an example from the late 80s.

Uh, no. We have plenty of examples, they just don't kill people that often, because some industries learned their lessons.

If you want recent one, 737 MAX, killed way more than Therac-25. Although it was as much fault of software as suits around it wanting to save a penny on training, because if pilots knew about how it exactly worked they could've circumvented it

The software on the MAX worked as designed/specified; unlike Therac-25 there was no bug in the critical path, it was a series of design and oversight failures pushed by business and cost cutting interests, and the actual accidents were triggered (though I wouldn't consider it causal) by hardware failure in one of the AoA sensors. There was a bug regarding displaying an AoA disagree warning to the pilots, which despite being known wasn't fixed by Boeing, but this wouldn't have actually changed anything about the plane's behaviour.

To the credit of systems engineers, I can't think of a recent high profile fatal accident that could be reasonably blamed primarily on software, but that's not so much because software is infallible, but because systems are designed to fail safe.

It is useful to have a canonical example. Shared understanding of the problem, etc.

It’s related to why memes exist.

> Software must be pretty amazing and safe that we have to keep bringing up an example from the late 80s.

Or perhaps this failure settle the argument about whether or not physical lockouts were necessary and due to regulations you can no longer rely solely on software?

More that software that is critical is written with some level of care, and then never touched again out of fear of breaking it. See all the stories of hospital machines running windows xp.

That actually has a lot more to do with drivers not being provided by manufacturers for newer operating systems

> but to paraphrase the designers eliminated the physical locking mechanism and had this attitude that "oh it's electronic so it won't wear out and fail".

And it would have been entirely fine if there was electronic safeguards put between code and rest of the device, just like some stop lights have it (if control board sends green signal to both directions it fails out and doesn't allow that). Defense in depth and all that

Covered really well in episode 39 of Causality, one of my favorite podcasts:

https://engineered.network/causality/episode-39-therac-25/

Each episode focuses on a root cause analysis of a major engineering disaster. Presented in a dry but engaging way - he's a good presenter, but none of the "Radio Lab" style nonsense.

Some fixtures may support yanking a bulb.

> It is funny people can't envision things breaking...

By comparison the Clap switch is so simple that if it is quite at least you can sleep at night

Take out the bulbs.

A lot of modern light fixtures have LEDs built in to the gadget, no separate "bulb".

Just turn it off at the fuse.

This reminds me a few years ago on a family holiday to malaysia I was sharing the room with my 10 year old cousin. I go downstairs to smoke suddenly his father calls me and tells me that my cousin called him crying in pitch black room as the lights went off. As he was lying on the bed reading a book motion censors did not detect any movement and the power cut off. Luckily he had his phone with him otherwise he would have been scarred for life. Why the fuck would they use motion censor for the light I would understand if they use it for the aircon or something but even then with the key card in the slot why would they set it like that.

> Luckily he had his phone with him otherwise he would have been scarred for life.

From the lights turning off? A ten year old?

Could be just a hyperbolic turn of phrase. The commenter may not be a native english speaker. The kid may have a developmental disability or a specific recent trauma related to this. Who fucking knows, it's none of our business. The story contributes to the discussion and makes its point either which way, what do you get from calling out this detail like this?

The parent may have a condition making him nitpicky, curious, and blunt (like Aspergers) or a specific professional or other curiosity related to this. Who fucking knows, what do you get from calling him out like this? See how it goes both ways?

FWIW I do have that condition as well, though it isn't usually called that these days.

What I gain from this is trying to move us away from comments that serve no purpose other than copy-editing each other and discouraging people from posting unless they can be confident in their adherence to the unwritten HN style guides. Which many people never can be, for various reasons.

If they had said that as part of a comment that overall served a different purpose I wouldn't have said anything. But it added nothing to this discussion except reinforcing the atmosphere that comments must be finely tuned to be taken seriously.

Hehe, I very much do have a condition making me nitpicky and excessively curious! Thank you, your comment made me smile :)

So a 10 year old in a foreign country in a room alone in pitch black dark for an hour or so won't get scared?. The room was pitch black we had checked in an hour or so ago so he was not even sure of where anything was in the room was. Though I confess part of the reason was his older siblings and cousins had been telling ghost stories the previous night.

You said "I go downstairs to smoke" and now you say "for an hour or so". I don't know your smoking habits, but isn't this a little unusual?

I don't think I've ever been in a "pitch black" hotel room. I'd bet there was light enough for him to start seeing just fine after five minutes.

The ghost stories, sure. But then he's scarred for life more by the ghost stories rather than by the lights turning off...

But the point of the anecdotal story was using automation wrongly why would you care about the turn of phrase I used

Sure agreed that automation is often pointless and more harmful than helpful. I'm just surprised you're making such a fuss about a ten year old in a dark room.

> I'm just surprised you're making such a fuss about a ten year old in a dark room.

Pretty sure that was just being used as an example to underscore a broader point. No need to nitpick.

> That said, I built up an ideology that any automation added should never replace physical items. All automation should have physical kill switches. Any occupants of the home should have appropriate access to things that you would normally give them physical access to.

I call this the grandma test. Can grandma come over to my place and still operate everything she needs without a CompSci degree.

It is definitely possible to have a very smart home but still have physical fallbacks that cater for most visitors.

There was an ad doing the rounds recently in Europe showing a geek setting up voice-activated home automation. And then getting a tooth removed under heavy anaesthetic.

Turns out "Mmmmffmghfff!" is not a valid Alexa command.

Also a bad idea to have a voice activated door during torrential rain. (Which is a silly example. But even so.)

It's not even a UI problem. No one is going to be happy if the power goes off and they can't get in or out.

Or the lock fails open and everyone can get in and out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwPtcqcqz00

> liquidated DC servers are stupidly cheap to purchase

Though not always cheap to operate, depending on your electricity costs.

I agree that liquidated equipment is great for these purposes (both servers, thin clients and small form factor office computers), but do a rough estimation of not just purchase cost but also yearly electricity cost. Some stuff is great, some stuff is being liquidated because of uneconomical TCO compared to newer equipment.

They are never cheap to operate. They got out of DC for a reason.

Few modern ones (on Intel side, AMD seems to be terrible with idle power usage) are not too bad but get something old and you'd be seeing 100W+ constant usage

This is a salient point. Any tips on hardware I could buy or build that can run many containers or VMs with variable power?

The ultra small form factor PCs that have become popular in the business market are honestly great for this. Many times they're using laptop CPUs, which significantly shrink their TDP, leading to less heat waste and power consumption while still having all the good accelerators folks desire for many homelab concerns (video codec accelerators for home media servers, VT-x/d for virtualization acceleration, etc). Grabbing three of those and installing a healthy amount of local storage and RAM and/or using a NAS for decentralized storage will get most homelabbers a real long way to doing nearly anything they want to do, and allow for simple and reliable high availability configs if you're like me and your homelab projects suddenly creep into being production systems.

I don't know what kind and how many VMs are you planning to run, but simple desktop hardware can go a long way. And they scale back power usage nicely too, when not utilized. My setup is small and old, I run an AMD FX-6100 with 20 gigs of RAM, six hard drives and an SSD, and idle power draw is around 15W.

Ah, the ideal of progressive enhancements. We know how that ended for HTML and JavaScript.

I agree with you but long term I believe that's going to be a losing game (except basic safety access akin to fire stairs today).

It's shame there is not much commercial pull in more of "local hub" model.

Just have everything talk (via MQTT or whatever) to local hub (that could double down as internet router, or whatever else) running a container with queue server.

Then you can just spin up second "app" (another container) with local controller, or connect that queue to vendor's cloud and their own app. Or have failover between one and other. Hell, integrate the two where you have one place to add all of your rules, but what is possible to do locally would be done.

The vendor could charge monthly for their cloud toys but not have to run all automation in the cloud (cost savings) and the user would get a box that can be configured from anywhere, but do vast majority of tasks locally and not be dependent on internet for basics.

In my case I don’t enter my home through the garage when leaving the house for the dog or just walking to the local shops and beach.

I solved opening the garage door when leaving by a much simpler approach: “Alexa, I’m leaving”(regex for various phrases) along with an Aqara button if I was on the phone.

For arrival of my car only, and not triggering when I would walk nearby (park and beach 1 block in either direction), I had home assistant dialed in to notice the Bluetooth connection to my cars audio by its ID from within the app etc. along with the proximity and whether I was moving towards or away. Away would close and towards would of course open. This was particularly tricky but as you explain always failsafes in place: garage door opener in car and for the opening mechanism was set to close in 2 mins but reset if there was motion in the garage. If I was marked away and there was motion in the garage it would close and also sound an audible alarm.

None of those of course would have been possible without NodeRed. It’s so much fun to use.

In my experience presence detection, if you want it to be useful, almost always has to be custom for your situation. Everyone has different patterns based on personal preference and living situation. Glad you figured yours out!

NodeRed is great. I don't use it but if you don't want to spend a ton of time writing rote automation in code it's a dope option (and that's an absolutely fair take to have imo).

This is why I like the Lutron switches - they work both manual and via HomeKit and if you change state one way you still can the other way - and they have a physical tiny tab you can pull to kill power to it if needed as a third backup.

Agreed. On a related note, I use these smart bulb dimmers all over the house: https://www.lutron.com/en-US/Products/Pages/StandAloneContro...

They work beautifully with Hue bulbs and HomeKit, as well as offline without WiFi. It also avoids the situation of people disabling smart bulbs by using the physical switch.

Those little guys are great. The Hue button thing (with four settings is nice too) though I’m not entirely sure how beneficial dimmable is in most areas.

All the power to you, and that is a good philosophy, but my god do I hate smart homes.

IoTs application in the home is neat and flashy but kind of a head scratcher. Everyone trying to get a lock on it and get that sweet sweet recurring monthly revenue. IoT application in the home looks cool, until you realize you are going to be replacing light switches every few years. My parents have light switches from the house they bought in the 70s, that was built in the 40s that have never been replaced and still work. Raise your hand if you think any of this zigbee/wifi enabled junk will still work in 70+ years much less 20 with no replacement? IoT works good in an industrial case where getting at something is a real pain. Such as monitoring a piece of equipment 3 miles up some rando dirt road and the people that maintain it cost 200 dollars an hour just to drive for 6 hours to look at it or worse have to go get a part and wait another 2-3 days. Rather pay them 200 an hour to fix something than 200 an hour to plug in a computer to read some outputs then drive home.

my new house has all zigbee enabled stuff. I had zero say in it. I will use them for awhile. But I know eventually I am going to get extremely angry at them and will just go buy a pile of eaton and ge light toggle switches and basically not worry about it again. Also someone in this thread suggested a separate network. Good idea. Guess I am going to be buying a decent router at some point.

>Raise your hand if you think any of this zigbee/wifi enabled junk will still work in 70+ years much less 20 with no replacement?

Surely you aren't also expecting to use the same lightbulbs for 70 years? Of course most of the Zigbee stuff won't last 70 years, but it isn't fundamentally all that different from light bulbs and other household appliances not tending to be able to handle regular use for 70 years. Especially lately with most 'smart' light bulbs being in the same form factor as 'dumb' ones.

As for switches, it's a digital system, if the switch breaks you are carrying a device capable of fulfilling the same function in your pocket (and potentially even wearing such a device on your wrist).

>As for switches, it's a digital system, if the switch breaks you are carrying a device capable of fulfilling the same function in your pocket

If the service/app is still around. And your IoT system? Is it compatible with the latest ver of android or iPhone? Many of these companies come and go very quickly. Pretty much as soon as the VC funding runs out, or they want to go play with 'their newest stack'. Then you get to spend another 200 bucks for a new 'hub' so the app can work again. Then hope the new hub can interpolate with the old gear. Else you get to update that too.

Home IoT gets one thing very wrong and it is why many do not want it. Timeframes are measured in 1-3 years instead of 1-3 decades. I know what timeframes I expect different parts of my system to work in. Short timeframes for toggle switches feels wrong. Because I can spend 3 bucks and have a switch that lasts decades with nearly zero upkeep and little to no ongoing monetary cost.

Also support is kind of random. Take for example Linus tech tips. He went full on into home automation. Yet even being a decent name in tech, the company that sold him his switches could not give him the right thing. He has a good chunk of his switches that may or may not do what he needs. Firmware update would fix it. But to do that he has to buy random update stations that may or may not come with the firmware. That is 1 toggle switch with a motion sensor. Stack all of that together and you get random 'well this bit does not work right'. I really do not want random when I walk into a room if the light will turn on and stay on. Then do what it says on the tin and turn off when I leave. If Linus can not get these companies to do the right thing what hope do I have?

Home automation for me is in that uncanny valley of frustration and magical. I used to write industrial ones. My timeframe of 'it has to work for a long time' is very jaded by that.

I can see you and I are optimizing for different results. I am optimizing for 'do not have to mess with it again or as little as possible' and you are optimizing for 'check out what my house does'. Both are worthy goals.

>If the service/app is still around. And your IoT system? Is it compatible with the latest ver of android or iPhone? Many of these companies come and go very quickly. Pretty much as soon as the VC funding runs out, or they want to go play with 'their newest stack'. Then you get to spend another 200 bucks for a new 'hub' so the app can work again. Then hope the new hub can interpolate with the old gear. Else you get to update that too.

My 'service/app' is an open source program (Home Assistant and Zigbee2MQTT, although previously I have used NodeRed instead to provide the browser based control panel), the hub is an old server with a usb dongle with open source firmware. While there is an app available, there doesn't have to be one as there is also a browser based interface (which doesn't have to be exposed to the internet). The bulbs are a mix of various cheap brands off Amazon which are popular enough to have good support.

Sure, I have the benefit that as a techy I can handle (and to an extent enjoy) maintaining this, but that's mostly a matter of proper packaging, as it isn't a particularly complex thing to set up and is pretty close to zero maintenance.

Great philosophy! I do this for everything, not just automation. My rule is: "Make everything optional."

> Anything worth doing is worth doing off-line.

But this is directly against the easiest line of profit so no, vendors will not stop going in that direction even if it makes no sense to most people.

I think most people's perception of what makes the most sense, involves someone else dealing with as much of the hassle as possible.

Which is why online enabled devices are popular and why companies cater for them.

If they could sell large numbers of offline versions at a markup, they would.

Then have it as selling point.

"Here is a box, we just run a container on it with your stuff, you can configure it in cloud as usual but all the stuff is run locally. Pay us monthly for convenience of setting it from cloud and software updates but don't worry, if we get out of business It Will Still Just Work".

> And since smartphones are ubiquitous, it is not unreasonable that your landlord would choose a technology that requires you to have one. “Almost everybody has a smartphone nowadays,” Mr. Goldberg said. “I don’t think the courts would be sympathetic to that” if you challenged the policy.

A technology that ~85% of people possess[1] can be mandatory to live in a building? Feels discriminatory and it seems like a bad opinion from one lawyer.

1 = https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/computer...

Is "discrimination" really the only evil we can think of these days?

The surveillance dystopia we are racing towards is only criticized if the facial recognition cameras spying on our every move work slightly worse on black people.

In this case, a phone is a device that is known to, at minimum, track your location, and now the landlord wants to run their code on it that you have only their word to trust is not nefarious, and can log every entry and exit to your apartment.

What % of the population own such a device is utterly irrelevant to whether its use should be mandatory to obtain shelter.

> Is "discrimination" really the only evil we can think of these days?

Increasingly, yes. I have joked for a while now that in the future, the only prosecutable crime will be bigotry. I see less and less consideration of civil principles like speech and privacy.

> Is "discrimination" really the only evil we can think of these days?

Discrimination is one of the evils that the courts have interest, capacity, and power to deal with -- and a history of dealing with.

"Surveillance dystopia"? Not so much.

And they were only able to get Capone on tax evasion. Yet we all recognize tax evasion as totally incidental to what he did. And that power of the courts you mention would never have come to pass if discrimination was only criticized via some other, incidental harm, like false advertising in job openings if they forget to mention they don't hire blacks.

I dunno, as long as this app bullshit is hit over its head by the courts, do we really care what road was taken to get there? (As long as Capone is in prison, do we care why?)

> The surveillance dystopia we are racing towards is only criticized if the facial recognition cameras spying on our every move work slightly worse on black people.

Constructing fairly absurd strawmen like this really hurts your ability to convince others.

I've seen more criticism of facial recognition surveillance on the grounds that it is less accurate for some races, than on the grounds that, if it worked perfectly, it would result in a massive loss of freedom, so this is no strawman:

https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/sciencepolicy/blog/racial-di...

https://theswaddle.com/how-facial-recognition-ai-reinforces-...

https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/how-is-face-rec...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facial-recognition-systems-raci...

https://www.csis.org/blogs/technology-policy-blog/problem-bi...

https://www.cnet.com/science/why-facial-recognitions-racial-...

https://theconversation.com/ai-technologies-like-police-faci...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/19/federal...

https://exposure.org.uk/2021/09/why-facial-recognition-tech-...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/04/racist-fa...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/technology/facial-recogni...

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2021/01/ban-...

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/24/882683463/the-computer-got-it...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/12/19/facial-recogn...

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/07/defun...

But in the interest of accuracy, "only" was hyperbole - there is some criticism on non-discriminatory grounds. It's just overshadowed by concerns on whether the hell we are building will be racist.

And if the original had said more instead of the hyperbolic take alluding to "its wokeness thats the problem" about it and acting like there arent constantly discussions about it, then i wouldnt have commented.

Lets be heckin' real here too. Because we both know, the same people ignoring racism are the ones usually bootlicking and supporting or denying creeping fascism so...

And yes i can cherry pick articles going back decades warning of surveillance and how tech is driving us towards dystopia. It was my god damn policy debate case 20 yrs ago and its not receded for anyone actually at the table.

But hey, unexamined biases could be an alt name for this site.

Seriously, if you take discussions of surveillance and then derail the conversation to discuss folks discussing race and tech, how do you not realize youre literally self-actualizing what youre whining about? Da fuq was the point of this derailement other than yet another place for certain folks to yet again subtley whine about woke-ism? Eh?

Can you post like, only one link, but one that makes a good point that holds up to scrutiny? I'm not feeling in the mood to search through 20 ad-riddled pages to find something backing up your point. It should be your job picking it out.

Those are all examples of stories complaining specifically about facial-recognition working worse for some races. The quantity, and prominence of the institutions spouting them, is the point.

There were also tons of stories decrying internet memes as hate symbols, so "The quantity, and prominence of the institutions spouting them" is not a valid argument.

Which data backs up your point?

It's funny because if they tried to replace key locks with fingerprint readers there'd be an immediate lawsuit over accessibility despite far more than 85% of people having usable fingers.

My fingers get cut, scraped, and burned enough during the course of a typical work week that fingerprint readers just don't work for me in general. My fingers are very usable but my fingerprints can sometimes be unusable.

Electronic "fingerprint" readers most commonly analyse the blood vessels under the skin, not traditional finger skin patterns.

Over a career of working with caustic cleaning chemicals and other stuff, my father's fingerprints are just about entirely gone. The last time he went in for fingerprinting they tried him on the scanner for nearly an hour before making an exception to the "electronic prints only" rule and broke out the ink pad and did it the old fashioned way.

You'd exclude most elderly people whose fingerprints have faded away, or people with hands a bit too moist for the print to register, etc.

While I do have mostly usable fingers, fingerprint readers do not like me; my hands are consistently too sweaty

Also fingerprint readers and indoor rock climbing don't go well together. At a job I had I needed to have my fingerprint reprogrammed every week or so because enough had rubbed off during climbing that it was not similar enough.

I have palmar hyperhidrosis as well. What helps is either clinical strength antiperspirant (something like DriClor) or iontophoresis.

DriClor seems to have no effect on me at all. Regular anti-perspirant works better for me.

my phone is regularly dead, and often the reason I come home early. not to mention, in states of inebriation I cannot function an app

Yeah that's actually terrifying to think that if my phone runs out of battery (which happens all the time) then I won't be able to get back into my house (or at least doing so will be highly inconvenient.)

Or god forbid I want to step outside my house without my phone. I need a phone in my pocket just to take my dog for a walk? Hard pass; I'd never want to live in a place like this.

my phone also sucks and the search can literally take upwards of a minute sometimes. This is a nightmare

They replaced the washing machines in the complex I live at recently. The doors don't open unless the app tells it to. One time I forgot to add a sock and had already closed the door. I hadn't paid or selected any options or even paired my phone yet. But the door was locked and I had no choice but to pay in order to get my clothes back. I had to just handwash my sock

Just more bs technology meant to keep houseless folks from accessing services.

If you observe how feed animals are raised, you'll see from the perspective of powerful people "raising" us. The goal is total disempowerment and uniformity while sustaining the powerful.

according recent Czech statistical bureau data[1] only 81% Czechs over 16 own smartphone, if you count kids the percentage drops even lower, but why should kids after school be able to get into building and apartment, right?

[1] https://www.czso.cz/documents/10180/200499059/csu_tk_ict_pre...

European living further East here, I guess the idea is to copy all the worst traits that are present across the Atlantic. For example not allowing kids under a certain age go outside unaccompanied by adults because the "outside" is a hellish place fraught with dangers. Under that scenario it doesn't really matter that a kid ages 10 or 12 doesn't have a smart-phone or not.

Hence why I can see stuff like this insidiously making its way around these parts in a few years' time.

I wonder if these keys are a thing in Czech? Or anywhere in Europe for that matter…

Locking the apartment building exit door is illegal under Czech fire code, in case of fire EVERYONE in the building (which can be also visitors not living there) must be able to open door from inside even without key or anything. That's the law, reality without enforced law is different, so you can easily get stuck in front of the door with fire behind you.

https://www.hzscr.cz/clanek/zamykani-vchodovych-dveri-bytovy...

As for apps, haven't seen it anywhere, we use chip keys, but almost always there is also standard key lock available.

Also, I am guessing that if you don't run iOS or Android (how recent ?) on your smartphone, you are out of luck ?

I agree requiring a smartphone in general is a bad idea, but realistically 99.9% of smartphones in the US have iOS or Android. Maybe outdated Android, but I think HN sometimes overestimates the prevalence and practically of alternative smartphone OSs (or gapps-free Android).

With some very rough maths, 0.1% of the US population is still over 330,000 people, and what, all these people should be excluded from renting (perhaps even buying) a home because they don't use the right phone?

My point is if you’re requiring smartphones, realistically you’re only going to target those two OSs. That’s independent of the fact that requiring it to rent an apartment is bad. Pick apart that last 0.1% and it’s mostly end of life devices like Windows/Blackberry.

And yet a key is truely ubiqitous.

It's more about : how are competitors are supposed to arise under these conditions ??

or you have rooted Android without gapps, my case, you can say goodbye to plenty of apps

> The app often fails when I use it, but I don’t have a key as a backup

Also I'm sure a court would be quite sympathetic if the app fails and you can't access the apartment your paying rent for..

Not to mention a technology that :

1. costs me hundreds of dollars to replace if it breaks

2. goes through its whole battery in a day or two

3. is rendered inoperable while wearing heavy winter gloves

4. will inevitably force me to agree to giving away PII for free before granting me its services

I'll stick with the metal key, thanks.

> 4. will inevitably force me to agree to giving away PII for free before granting me its services

And what if you _don't_ agree? You have a contract signed for your apartment. Can you not access that apartment if you don't agree to the additional terms?

Butterfly seems to be taking over everywhere. I recently moved to a new building, and they're using it, as well as every individual apartment having fob-based locks on a separate system, without any key backup. We had our first power outage a few weeks ago, and it meant I had no way of locking my door behind me. The person's described problem at least doesn't apply here, though, since the same fob works on the front door.

Additionally, the staircases were fobbed to get back in, which meant immediately after getting into the staircase, I had no way of getting back onto my floor. They pretty quickly propped all the doors open, at least, but still seems pretty awful from a trade-off perspective as a tenant. I'm sure it makes the management of keys in general a billion times easier for the building, though.

I have a relative who works management at apartments.

The digital keys do save a huge amount of trivial resets and lock outs that are otherwise dealt with via manual labor.

Seems like it should be mandatory that the doors have either a physical backup (key) or several days of stored power.

This is really only relevant for buildings with 24/7 supers which are qualified electricians and trained in this particular product.

Very large apartment blocks.

I'd never choose to buy an apartment in one of these.

You don't buy apartments, you rent them.

Most of the US differentiates owned vs rented by using the terms condo or apartment, but the term apartment is used for both in at least Chicago and New York.

Also Australia. Here I say I own my apartment. Here you can own or rent an apartment just like you can own or rent a house.

I didn't know what a "condo" was until recently. I've heard that word on american TV shows but I never knew what it meant.

I have a condo in Chicago so there's more to it. And individually we live in "units".

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/flats/london/ https://japanpropertycentral.com/real-estate-faq/apartment-b... https://tranio.com/usa/ca/apartments/

Okay, I listed examples in London, Japan and California that clearly indicate that apartments can be purchased.

This is a distinction I also grew up with, I think it's a regional thing.

Pretty sure it grew as something like, "apartment" != "apartment building", where the second is read as "(adjective) (noun)" instead of as a compound noun, and just describes the physical layout of the whole building, while just "apartment" is describing the individual units and has an implied rent-not-buy.

In my experience, it's a distinction made in suburbs, I suspect because of the influence of NIMBYs who are opposed to rental apartments existing or being built. They say it's because they're afraid it'll lower property values and attract the "wrong" kinds of people that they chose to live in suburbs to stay away from.

"Apartments" says urban sprawl, poor people and minorities, "condos" says the opposite. The first says "there goes the neighborhood" and the other implies luxury housing that raises property values.

In cities, "apartments" is generally used for rental and owned apartments.

speak for yourself

If you want to see something truly scary, from the point of view of an ISP, the number of building management people installing access control system who want a static public IP for them and intend to plug them directly into the internet without any form of firewall or router in between. Same with camera systems! And keyfob systems! And "smart" management devices of all types. They have no clue whatsoever.

Modernity is making entertainment show hacker over watch tropes true. Hero approaches locked door - over comms, net runner : I’ve almost got it hacked - door pops open. It’s so amazing.

Literally this.

I've worked on some audits that included pretty featureful BMS, and no joke, some of those systems could have given real "mission impossible" capabilities to an intruder.

Disable alarms? Disable cameras? Unlock doors? All possible through a web control panel that looked like it belonged in the early 2000's with hard coded, undocumented accounts.

Hmm, but this has been the norm for customer IPv6 for years now, and the sky has not fallen yet somehow ?

Or is it not so much because IPv6 is inherently more secure, but rather because its support is still pretty bad outside of the main computers ?

Or because random house appliances are not a particularly interesting target ?

Well, I agree that NAT is not proper security, but at least it provided a second layer on top of the incompetence of your average IoT developer.

The so-called smart devices doesn't follow the standard security protocols anywhere close to computers and mobile devices.

Host discovery in IPv6 is a harder problem due to the huge address space, whereas with IPv4 I can sweep the entire v4 address space in maybe 30-60 minutes for a port of interest.

Scanning the whole address range is difficult but due to the methods used to generate and acquire ipv6 addresses, there are methods to find assets.

https://github.com/lavalamp-/ipv666

The consumer routers I have experience with still apply a stateful firewall to IPv6 traffic.

> but this has been the norm for customer IPv6 for years now

Is it? Don't most consumer routers come with a firewall configured to block incoming IPv6 connections?

Maybe brand new ones do (?), but the ones I've used in the past few years don't seem to (they have no way to configure it).

This is in the context that those ISPs are boasting 90%+ IPv6 coverage, which makes up for tens of millions of residential customers !

Are you sure? Because these boxes typically don't provide any (good) tools for configuring their IPv4 NATs/firewalls, why would you expect them to provide tools for managing the newfangled IPv6? IPv6 support in a lot of routers is pretty lacklustre, but I've never seen one so incompetent that it doesn't at least block inbound traffic by default.

My building has fob-based locks that are battery powered and work when the power is out, which I know because they recently replaced the batteries. Just another anecdote I wanted to contribute.

I was honestly expecting mine to be like that, and was pretty annoyed when it was just outright dead.

This doesn’t make sense… how are they running power to the door lock? I would have guessed that these devices always run on battery don’t they?

For buildings with 'heavy duty' entry systems, power to a powered lock can be hooked up through a 'door loop' [1] on the secure side of the door.

Or you can put the electronic lock in the frame of the door, as an electromagnet or an electronic strike [2].

The door to a residence, personal office or hotel room might only need to open 10x per day and so can be battery powered - but the main entrance to an office building might open 1000x per day, so wired power is the right choice there.

[1] https://doorentrydirect.com/srs-460mm-door-loop-with-cable-p... [2] https://doorentrydirect.com/alpro-al151-inwardly-opening-ele...

If it’s a commercial building it’s easy enough to run power through a special hinge.

A guy I made a website for a looong time ago sold systems like that. The system he sold had some really neat tricks to avoid needing to be connected to a network and the like.

The main entrance had the only networked badge system. What it'd do is when you entered the building it'd write an update list to your fob. When you then open any of the non-networked locks they'd grab the update list from your fob. This way things like revoking access to fobs or adding new fobs to the system would get to all the doors pretty quickly without them needing to be connected to wifi or whatnot.

Of course this also makes it feasible for the locks to run on batteries for a long time. The next trick the locks did was when you unlock a non-networked door it'd write its battery state to your fob. When next operating a networked lock it'd pass the battery state along to the main database. Hey presto you're getting low battery alerts, and there's still no always-on network slurping battery life.

In case of a power outage the reception people could let people in the main door, and all the other locks in the building would keep working as they always have.

Can’t lock your door when the power is cut? Sounds great for a rapist/robber/murderer. That is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Sorry, to be clear, it can be locked from the inside. The internal lock continues to function just fine. You just can't lock (or unlock) it from the outside.

That's equally bad. Someone can enter and hide inside your unit while you are away.

If power goes out when away the door stayed locked. Only if one has to leave their apartment when power is out does the door not lock. Same problem happens when coming home and the power is out, door wont open. Likewise not having access to phone leaves you out of your home.

This will most likely be sorted out for this use case but Im generally concerned with this rushed innovation, there’s no fallback to a basic method.

Door locks for all unit doors (places people live) are all battery based with a fail over of being locked but only to the outside. If you're inside they all open like normal doors. It's extremely obvious months a head of time when the battery is dying and nearly all systems will report this to whatever the unlock system is.The exact system determines if you're simply turning a door handle or switching a dead bolt to leave. There's no possibility of someone sneaking in or you being locked in.

Common doors, like to a lobby or a gym can possibly fail to let you inside if there is a power failure but you will never be trapped inside. Those systems are almost always paired with a FOB so you aren't locked out and often times there's a guarantee of a property manager that is on call for emergencies.

The records of when people use their keys will surely get stolen and/or sold.

If they propped all the fire-doors open, the first thing I would have done is called the fire department to report a dangerous situation.

I am not a lawyer, but based on my experience with New York tenant law the attorney is correct that the apartment management only needs to provide you with a means to enter and secure the apartment.

If I did not want to use the app, I would instead claim that the TOS of the app itself is an addendum to the lease and refuse to consent to the terms of the app. The building management would then need to figure out a way to get you into the your apartment without agreeing to the app terms.

I am surprised the attorney consulted for the article did not bring up this issue. I also would not expect to receive a lease renewal in this situation.

I am not a lawyer, but based on my experience with New York tenant law the attorney is correct that the apartment management only needs to provide you with a means to enter and secure the apartment.

Meaning - if that "means" is a smartphone - then (unless the lease you signed says otherwise), the landlord is obligated to provide you with a smartphone (along with a fully paid contract).

Otherwise it's a lockout, which under NYC tenant law constitutes over harassment. Period, end of story.

You could definitely argue that you do not wish to or cannot have this app on your device. Buying a smartphone and installing the app for you would probably be the management’s next step. A cheap $100 smartphone costs relatively nothing compared to a year of NYC rent ($25k-$75k). So you would probably be stuck carrying two phones around.

I’m not sure a phone contract would be needed, especially if the building has WiFi.

So you would probably be stuck carrying two phones around.

The main point is that if landlords want to go this route -- they must provide means of egress, without any additional costs imposed upon the tenant (unless agreed to otherwise in the lease).

This idea that they can just decide to require that you go out and buy smartphone (or to run their app on your phone) in order to gain entry to your apartment -- again, unless you've agreed to a lease that says otherwise -- is (despite what both the lawyer and the columnist in the original article) just nonsense, in any jurisdiction (such as NYC) with a reasonably healthy suite of tenant protect law on the books.

The seems reasonable to me. The landlord is basically requiring you to agree to the Android or iOS terms as well as any terms of the app itself. You can't be forced to agree to these.

I wonder the same thing about work. If my job wants me to use some software can they require me to agree to the ToS? What happens if I don't want to?

I worked in a consultancy and had to sign contracts when visiting company clients and using their equipment.

It was always my understanding that I signed as a representative of the company, not personally.

Did you sign using your own name and signature?

Yes. I get where you’re going, but someone from HR also signed with their own name on my job contract. I wasn’t working for someone at HR. The company hired me.

I lived in a fancy apartment complex in the east of Moscow for about a year recently. We had physical keys (except for an NFC-card to open the outside doors/gates, which was tolerable), but there was no doorbell of any kind.

The idea was that you'd have a fancy app that would let you "register" guests and the doormen would receive notifications about this with information about the guests (privacy concerns anyone?!).

In practice all of the following happened:

- Nobody used the app. I believe that nobody in that building even knows _how_ to use the app, including staff. My landlord had no idea, the doormen had no idea, etc. What ended up happening is that the concierge desk got a "blessed" landline phone and anyone who knew that phone number was implicitly "authorised" to allow them to let anyone in. Some doormen didn't even bother and just let anyone in who looked like they wanted to enter.

- Unannounced visitors had absolutely no way to make themselves known to you if they didn't have another way to contact you (e.g. technicians showing up). This actually happened to me once with a delivery driver who somehow didn't get my phone number, and got stuck in "doorman limbo" until I realised that something was off and went downstairs to ask the doorman if he'd seen anyone, and found the poor guy hanging out in the lobby.

- On the off chance that somebody would have figured out how to use the app, it's likely it wouldn't have worked because I don't think any of the workflows of anyone there involved looking at whatever/wherever the app was supposed to do its thing.

This is just the most recent example of this kind of crap for me. Sometime earlier I had an experience with a similar building in Oslo, where I ended up being the only person who could get into the building during a power outage because I absolutely insisted on having a physical key for the front door.

Internet connected "things" just suck.

I say the same of "menu apps" in restaurants. This crap existed before the pandemic but covid made's it a million times worse. Jesus Christ am I sick of scanning a QR code and straining at my tiny phone screen to choose my order from a crappy, unresponsive website where each page takes ten seconds to load. How is this possibly an improvement over a paper menu?

It is am improvement from the restaurant's point of view. They get dine-in order and take-out orders through the same system, where they all appear instantly on a reliable system right in the kitchen. Paying waiters to walk to your table, listen to what you want, and either scribble on a notepad or navigate the same annoying website is not a good use of resources.

I know that the restaurant's concerns are not necessarily your concerns, but unlike many other industries, neighbourhood casual dining is competitive enough that the savings probably get passed on to you.

All restaurants i have been to that had QR code menus either had waiters that would come to you for your order (just skipping the giving a menu part) or you had to order at the bar. Never have i seen such a order online system, probably because it would be dead easy to adversarially order food to be wasted.

I was recently at a restaurant that used a QR menu. However, they are in a weird location and have no cellular service for my <major carrier> provider. They also have no wifi. I simply couldn't get enough connection (a trickling 1-bar) to actually load the menu.

They had no paper menus.

I had to use another patron's phone to get the menu to order. Nonsense.

The whole back-and-forth of this, asking the server to try to find a paper menu, etc took almost 20 minutes, and left me as a customer immensely frustrated with the business and despite that it is a very unique spot, I haven't been back since.

When I know what I want in a place I frequent it is super convenient.

It is also super nice if you just there to get quick food and beer and don’t have time to browse menu and expect “dining experience”.

After scanning one QR code for a restaurant menu in 2020, I resolved not to repeat that experience. Subsequently requested and usually received a paper menu, even in 2020-2021. On the rare occasion that one was not available, a dish was chosen via Socratic chat (non-GPT).

At least my phone is back lit and I can pinch zoom to read it. As you get older, reading a paper menu with a small, poorly chosen font in the "mood lighting" present in many restaurants becomes quite the chore.

I've really come to resent any "smart" system that effectively makes a modern phone with data a requirement.

Smart locks with no physical key, QR code based menus, etc - none of this should become a norm.

I wouldn't mind if most "smart" systems weren't utter crap.

I bought an electric keyboard a few months ago. Despite having no screen, and being otherwise a super simple electronic device, it still takes about 15 seconds to boot up and become playable after I turn it on.

My new computer monitor is a 48" OLED panel. It has some "smart adaptive dimming" to prevent burn-in where the monitor dims if it hasn't seen enough pixels change color in the last few minutes. It slowly dims while I'm actively sitting in front of my computer programming, and I need to wiggle bright window around the screen to get my monitor to turn back on properly. I filed a couple support requests to the manufacturer, and they confirmed the behaviour is impossible to disable.

I bet they did that to get some environmental certification. In the gaming market this wouldn't be an issue and might even be desired. I had a similar problem a while back and also found it infuriating. If you can't fix it, trade it.

Gigabyte Aorus FO48U?

It's half the price of 32" Aorus with IPS panel. Guess I dodged the bullet by not buying it.

Thats the one! Other than the terrible software, its a gorgeous display.

I've been quietly wondering how hard it would be to reverse engineer the firmware to change the dimming timeout to u32::MAX or something. Either that or write a script to flash a bright overlay window for a few frames every minute or so to keep the monitor awake.

I am put off by QR code menus. The last thing I want is a need to use my phone if I’m sitting at a table with people.

Went to a restaurant in Sweden last year and they told me that the "new way" to order was through an app. I used to live there, but not anymore, and my Play Store account is not set to Sweden. Turns out, you could only download the app with a Swedish Play Store account.

They were baffled by this and resorted to giving me a physical menu. I also emailed their corporate division and explained the problem and said that the whole procedure of ordering through an app is uncomfortable and makes me not want to come back.

Came back this year on a visit and lo and behold - no mention of any apps. Just physical menus and waiters taking orders. Seems like I wasn't the only one who gave them this feedback ...

Hardly surprising that restaurants went this way given corona, it was the same here in Norway. Now that both peoples' perceptions and other restrictions have eased, the standard old physical menu is back on the table.

I really don't understand why it needs to be an app. Like couldn't you now do it with some horrendous modern website?

Not that I'm fully against apps for restaurant chains and such. Some of them are nice and practical.

A year ago covid was in full swing.

Only in some Western countries and China, definitely not in Sweden.

I think QR menus are great if it's possible to also directly order and pay from the phone. Especially when going out in large groups where you don't want to necessarily split the bill or where the organizer doesn't want to risk having to pay for items that nobody else claims.

The solution and the problem are both my personal hell.

A table full of people fucking around on their phones (and of course the establishment in question needs you to sign up for an account and fill out a profile before you can pay your bill) or the bullshit and mental hoops some people will jump throught to scam their friends out of a few dollars when deciding how to split a bill.

From my personal experience: The places that I've seen so far that use that system (including one place that I regularly attend with a larger group) do not require an account or anything: Scan a QR code, if you don't want to log in just enter your credit card number, and start ordering. If you're not comfortable with that approach there's usually also some way to order without a phone.

Regarding "scam their friends": 99% of the time it's not about "scamming": Cashiers ask people for which items they want to pay and mistakes happen because people sometimes remember things wrong. Once everyone paid there are still some few unaccounted items for the table due to those honest mistakes.

> Regarding "scam their friends"

The person who ordered the caviar, lobster and cocktails ALWAYS suggests just splitting the bill evenly. The person who just got a starter and a glass of water then has to be the "cheap" one and push back (and they probably ordered like that because they didnt want to spend $200 on dinner).

Eventually we just stopped inviting the guy who orders a $500 bottle of wine for "the table" aka themselves then insists on splitting the bill evenly.

Or some bright spark figures out a lovely pdf hack. Then is able to root thousands of phones for a swath of restaurants. As I am willing to bet most restaurant sites are not exactly hardened and a nice soft target for criminals to exploit. Pair that with the number of phones out there that are not up to date...

The cost to take a menu and print it for each table plus some is non-zero. The cost to replace the old online menu with the new menu online is near-zero, besides man hours for the manager/chef to determine the seasonal cuisine.

Cost for paper menus is nominal, and lasts thousands of eaters. Disagree cost to replace old menu is near-zero, most restaurant owners have to hire a dev for edits. On menus you just use a marker

> most restaurant owners have to hire a dev for edits

Source? All i've seen has been CMSes/SaaS platform which definetely shouldn't require a dev to update.

Restaurants/Cafes should cater to customers, not to some geeky manager/chef who is on a weird power trip pushing customers to use their phones.

I've walked out of few places because they failed to present a proper hard menu. Seen few people struggling with their phones.

Totally ok with funny thing until there is a choice. Who prefers it - good luck struggling with your phone. I am not one of you.

The restaurant could lose out on sales from customers who are dissatisfied with a lack of a physical menu, especially many older people who are not as comfortable using technology or don't even have a data plan.

The restaurant could also lose customers who are tourists, who don't necessarily have a data plan while traveling. While it's a bit more convenient for the restaurant, the convenience comes at the cost of the customer.

Also, the UX for many of the menus is often pretty bad (with diners often asking: "how do I place an order?" "did I place an order or not?" "how do I go back?").

If the cost of printing a menu is more than the price of the meal, I don't want to eat there.

If the restaurant offers great dishes that cost near-zero, I would find that approach acceptable as a customer. If they want far-from-zero money, I would look elsewhere.

Good smart locks have a keypad and a key as a backup, while being NFC unlockable with a phone or watch. See the Schlage encore plus.

If I run out of phone battery, lose or misplace my phone, lent it to a friend because they needed it in an emergency, left it at samsung/apple service center for repair, or my screen cracked and wont take touch input, or ran out of data on my plan, or plan got deactivated by Telcom provider error, or got phone got infected by malware, or ran out of storage or memory, my bank/work says the apartment app is malware ...

I can't enter my home?

The article mentions disabilities, but what about privacy?

Is it legal for a landlord to require tenants to log in and out of their apartments? Do these apps effectively do that?

I think it’s probably legally in the clear. You can have cameras at all the outside doors of an apartments complex which effectively does the same thing. And you can have fobs instead of keys.

There is more though because the app is on your phone and likely has access to more data than a key fob would provide.

And then sold.

...cameras might do the same thing, but only with considerably more effort, and due to the storage requirements of video footage, it's less likely that landlords would process the footage in time to form a simple entry/exit log. App-based fobs skips the whole processing step, and the data collection occurs on the phone, not on some device outside the owner's possession (the camera). I'd say it could be easily rejected by tenants in Europe based on GDPR, but not sure about America.

My apartment complex uses Latch. Honestly I figured there'd be way more problems with it than I've actually dealt with. The worst was when the battery in the deadbolt got within 5% life remaining and so it wouldn't consistently lock or unlock with its motor until the battery was replaced; I could still lock it from within my unit like normal.

As long as maintenance crew keeps an eye on the battery and replaces it proactively, I don't really have any issues.

I think one other time it needed some kind of soft reset but that's been it so far in almost two years of daily use.

A couple things I do wish it could do:

1. It seems to have a camera built in but there's no way to look through it on the app. Would be handy for checking who's at the door from my phone.

2. I can only unlock my door from the app. Occasionally I would like to check if it's already locked and if not, then lock it; for some reason this function isn't available.

Sometimes I do wish I had a physical key but I haven't really _needed_ one so far. There are also multiple ways to unlock the door:

1. Phone app 2. Watch app 3. Passcode

Sure you have to memorize the passcode but that's not really a huge deal, IMO.

Note that Latch offers a physical key, which I got when I asked for it in exchange for a $50 deposit, but as my landlord noted, “please use the app occasionally instead of the keycard, so that we can receive low battery reports”.

Which means, as far as I can determine anyways, that Latch uses the app method so that building owners don’t have to deploy wireless AP infrastructure, and can instead externalize all status reporting about a lock to your phone’s cellular/wifi plan.

(It also offers backup PINs, but their keypads are really awful.)

My biggest problem with Latch is the latency. My building switched from old-school key fobs to Latch, and even ignoring the extra time spent unlocking my phone to access the Latch app, once the phone is in front of the scanner communicating it takes multiple seconds to unlock. To say nothing of whether it seems like that reader is having a bad day, and I have to use a different door with a functioning reader.

The old key fob unlocked the door instantly (no noticeable lag) 100% of the time without fail. And I didn’t have to have a spare hand to “unlock” my fob to use it.

I feel like the latency wouldn't be such an issue if they used the native iOS / android features with nfc but not entirely sure. Honestly what I usually do is just unlock it from my phone or watch as I'm reaching my landing (about ten feet from my door), so it's unlocked my the time I reach for the handle.

My complex has been on Latch for about a half year and my experiences are consistent with yours; nothing bad to report so far. (Except one day where the intercom system was out of power or something so delivery people could not call me on it to buzz them in.)

As an iOS user I enjoy being able to say (with phone in pocket) as I approach the lobby door "Hey Siri, unlock lobby" and have it be done by the time I am at the door. I wish this functionality was enabled for my apartment door but it's not, so I still have to pull the phone out, go to the widget, and push a button. As you said elsewhere, Latch doesn't seem to use the native iOS functionality for interacting with locks, so that may be the cause; it's also, as you also said, likely the cause of the latency between requesting an unlock and it actually happening.

> I can only unlock my door from the app.

So if your battery runs out, you can't get in?

Admittedly, keys can be lost too, but it's still a new way you can get locked out.

Also, a phone being stolen seems much more likely that keys being stolen.

Technically yes but the maintenance crew is supposed to be notified of battery life, so as long as they're doing their job they should be replacing it long before that happens.

Also I am able to check the battery level myself inside the app. So if I see it getting low (20%) I can just cut a maintenance ticket and they'll come out and do it.

I've never been truly locked out. Maybe if maintenance and the tenant truly drop the ball that could happen. And of course yes it's an extra step you'd never need to spend cycles on with a physical key and lock. But as said, I haven't really gotten to that point in about two years of use.

IIRC applepay, transit and carkey work with dead battery (there’s always like a little reserve there). Best fallback is a pin code.

Only for a short while.

It feels like we are nicely building a single point failure for everything.

Now we can dream that some day maybe in 10 years someone will push a software update to every Apple device that will automatically brick them and enjoy the ensuring chaos. As people are unable to do anything at all.

Even simpler than bricking Apple, an attacker can now lock pick an apartment simply by finding a vulnerability in the app. He can do this with all the time in the world, from the comfort of his own home, and assuming zero legal risk or suspicion from others.

In fact this puts every cyber criminal in the world at exactly zero distance from your doorstep. And once they break into one apartment, they can break into them all.

To be fair, it's very easy to pick a standard door lock, and both require physical access to enter the home.

A more interesting consideration is how much data is going to be collected, retained, and monetized down the line. And probably handed over to law enforcement.

Would put my salary on bet that it is actually the primary goal of the change.

There is perfectly nothing wrong with traditional locks to be substituted with another crappy app, whose only goal is data farming.

>Would put my salary on bet that it is actually the primary goal of the change.

Landlord gets paid for the data app collects about tenants?

Corporation dislike saying "they pay for user data". They prefer to formulate it as "they provide analytics". So nobody pays landlord, instead information is funneled for free to half a hundred of "analytics" providers, who then regurgitate that data a little, and THEN sell it if there are any buyers. Conglomerates which effectively consist of multiple different corporations-projects don't even need to do it, they just pass user data to the colleagues.

That's my guess about this situation.

Here is an example of such app https://play.google.com/store/apps/datasafety?id=com.butterf...

Why does my keyfob need access to my messages and contacts?

You are asked whether you want to give that permission, and the rationale is probably in the context. You can always refuse to grant the permission when asked.

You can always refuse to grant the permission when asked, and the app can always refuse to grant you access to your own apartment until you grant that permission.

Do they have a phone charger at the door? I have an almost 3yo iPhone SE, which only just makes it through the day on a charge (if I don't use it lot's).

The moment I get home is the time of the day I'm most likely going to have a flat phone battery. I've often headed out for a run or a ride only to have my phone die just before getting hime, since Strava (gps activity tracking) has burner through my battery.

So no way I'd want a house app for a house lock. Also, what about power failures, network outages? (I live on a island (pop 500k) so there have been already been multiple multi-hour near island wide internet outages - in which not even businesses can accept card payments). I assume the landlord couldn't blame you for smashing a window to gain entry in such a circumstance?

We had this (thankfully an optional addition to physical keys) at one of my previous buildings. The failure rate was maybe 2% but still way too high to trust for regular use.

The locks also ran on batteries, which a technician came out multiple times in the ~year I lived there to replace. Overall was a nice add-on to the physical key for e.g. guest access but the economics of these things given the battery replacement seems dubious. If it ain't broke...

I had two phones break on me this year, due to the internal electronics failing. Not dropped or cracked, just screen gradually losing the ability to display correctly then eventually going dark continuously.

That's when I found out my business bank cannot do payments with their web banking if I don't have a registered, still working phone. And their phone-in banking service with its large voice menu and long waiting times also does not support making a payment. Lots of other things, general help, registering new devices, but not basic banking. For that you must have a registered device, they confirmed.

I had to buy a new phone (twice, in a hurry), and only then could I make a simple payment.

That was annoying. Imagine how much more annoying it would be to be stuck outside your home for a few days waiting for your new phone to be shipped!

(Hope the courier doesn't put it through the letterbox too!)

I can't imagine that this undisclosed requirement wouldn't let the tenant escape their lease, or at a very minimum allow them to force the landlord to provide a phone for that purpose if they don't want to abandon the lease.

You know a lot of these “lockouts” can be avoided by only giving tenants the ability to lock their door via a deadbolt…get rid of the ability to lock their doors via knob lock

My mind immediately goes back a few years, to when high-end Land Rovers were being routinely stolen, because their "smart" keys were trivial to hack.

Regulatory suggestion: Any landlord with "smart" locks and an app is required to maintain an extremely large insurance policy, to cover the "if the app system is hacked" scenario. And any extra premiums which tenants' insurers require, because of issues with not-so-"smart" systems? Landlord pays.

Technological choices are acts of power over others, and technologies are a way of not having to experience the world. Your landlord's choice of an "app" is a subconscious attempt to make you (as a concern) disappear.

The fastest way of getting court attention--as suggested in the article--is most certainly through a reasonable accommodation claim.

I think a key to the apartment is something that's de facto supplied with a lease. They can't require you to spend additional money for a smartphone and service. (They key can be a fob or card in 2022, of course.)

So, if you smartphone battery runs out at 2am in the winter, you freeze to death?

Yeah, smartphones never run out of batteries or credit.

how is this legal, don't they have some fire code in US? it's nice you can open from inside, but how can firemen get in the building without wasting precious seconds?

plus at least in czechia only 81% people over 16 have smartphone, much less if you count also kids, so my kids would be locked out and most likely also me with rooted Android without gapps

> but how can firemen get in the building without wasting precious seconds?

In my experience, the axe is their first option - even if they could get the keys. It's kinda a job perk.

Since these presumably work using NFC, is it possible to load the access code onto a programmable NFC fob and use that as a key? Or is there a bit more security that than involved?

Incoming article titles:

* I was locked out of my apartment because I left my charger cable at home.

* My home unlock app keeps crashing.

* My smartphone was stolen so I was homeless for a night while I waited for the Apple Store to open.

* Automate evictions with smartlocks

I've honestly trapped myself outside a bunch of times in the few months I've lived in one of these buildings. Fwiw, Butterfly lets you set up access codes that persist, and so technically if you set one and remember it you can't lock yourself out... but my building's elevators are also fob-locked, so even if I can get into the building, I end up trapped in the lobby until someone's willing to fob me upstairs.

The last one is probably illegal. The only way to do an eviction is through the courts, and there's not really much "automation" available.

> The last one is probably illegal.

Landlords, that famously decent and 100% completely law abiding group of people.

I think any landlord that violates these sort of laws should not be allowed to be a landlord anymore.

Sure but it becomes really hard to fight it when you are locked out of your home and possessions.

The reality is that possession is 9/10ths of the law.

Technology is not the limiting factor preventing indiscriminate lock-out evictions. It is trivial to do so without an app.

Disagree here. The laws are pretty well established when it comes to physical objects and renting. Electronics are a bit more unsettled. I rotate the pin of the electronic keylock once a month for your security ... when you stop paying rent- whether I need to give you the new code is a bit more fuzzy I think.

Anyway if you have to harass a tenant I think that cutting off electricity is the best way. Renders a home almost unusable. But it is not really vital.

Changing a physical lock is not difficult. It's not done quickly to evict people because it's a guaranteed win in civil court and a criminal offense.

And this is why everything is moving more and more towards a "no possessions" kind of style.

I hate to even put this in the ether, but someone could make a startup that integrates key management, property management, and gig-economy lawyers.

add some vrbo/airbnb type management functions into it too, and also automated utility billing like for smart electrical meters (which of course you must pay through a web portal that charges a 3% convenience fee), etc.

This could be an entryway into making "Airbnb friendly" apartments

They can likely pull all kinds of shenanigans by slipping something into your rental agreement to the effect of, "if the tenant is behind on rent we reserve the right to revoke access to their keys and require the tenant to ask the front attendant to unlock and lock their unit as necessary". Basically still give you access but make it extremely painful and degrading or shameful to ask someone to open it (and maybe even limit your ability to do so to office hours).

No, they really can't. Maybe in a handful of places that have completely given up on the idea of tenant's rights, but this wouldn't fly in almost any major city in the US.

Like I said it's shenanigans. Almost certainly the law is not explicit enough to say people are required to have a functioning key, it likely just says people are required to have residency of a unit. If gaining entry requires some ridiculous process and you sign a rental agreement agreeing to follow it then that's that.

Could that actually be legal though? The system must be pretty dysfunctional to allow people to circumvent tenants rights so blatantly. There's no way that would fly in New Zealand. You can't deny your tenant access to their home at nighttime because you've personally decided they're "evicted". Evictions have to be approved by the tenancy tribunal or something like that, and then you can change the locks or, I imagine disable their fob/app. Same goes for requiring them to go through some degrading begging process when they want to get in or out.

I'm not saying you're denied access, I'm saying they will make the access go through an onerous process like having to ask someone to open the unit (after verifying your identity). This is a classic tactic to make people want to move out on their own.

"No rent, no service". Getting the lock device changed == service.

The courts will have to square that one.

The second one is already part of the article.

> It’s similar to landlords who provide key FOBs or cards in lieu of metal keys

Cards don’t need batteries, don’t need internet connections and can be pretty robust. It is actually superior to smartphone in its simplicity and efficiency without needing its own power source.

Remember how Facebook had a few hours long outage and employees couldn't get into the office and had to wait outside in rain?

I don't understand when people design things without thinking about all possible scenarios.

What if I went somewhere and came back with a completely drained phone in the middle of the night? Should I wake up my neighbors and ask to charge my phone or should I sleep outside until the concierge opens their office the next morning?

In France, there's Vigik badges, which seem to have all the advantages of app-based locks without the defects (mainly: relying on an active device and being dependent on external network and infrastructure).

Can someone here compare both systems?

My bank's ATM is out of order a few times per year, I don't see a reason to trust electronic locks more. Meanwhile I can't remember a time my physical lock just didn't work.

I've had my key break off inside the lock before.

The downside is that you need to carry a separate dongle with you, instead of the phone you already have.

I've been using a shiny metal dongle to lock my door for my whole life. Why would carrying a different shaped dongle be a problem?

A dongle? I really see no issue currently having bunch of these pieces of metal and plastic that magically allow me to open doors, even if there is power cut or the contract on the lock has run out...

you can ask for there to be an emergency option or key that may not be electric based in the exits of the building...if they can place an axe inside glass they surely can place emergency keys

The doors are generally automatically unlocked when going from inside to out, power or no power.

Not in my case, have to push a button for going out !

Speaking of which, we are expecting (regular ?) power cuts this winter, I think the doors should automatically unlock during one, but I should check with the agency...

Periodic reminder that this effectively means your landlord is mandating that you accept either Google's or Apple's terms of service.

The boat has sailed. These days mandatory government apps are being hosted on the App and Play store.

In Australia when I traveled interstate, I was required to install a government app to “confirm I didn’t have covid symptoms” daily with the threat of sending the police to your house if you don’t comply.

According to here https://www.health.gov.au/health-alerts/covid-19/domestic-tr... there are no longer any restrictions on interstate travel related to covid.

Rounding a temporary restriction during a crisis up to "that boat has sailed" seems overly dramatic.

So requiring people accept Google or Apple’s terms and conditions and being forced to own and use one of their products, on a whim, during a crisis, is less egregious than doing so long term?

“That ship has sailed” essentially means that it has already happened, and precedent has been set. Which… it has. That it was (initially) done as a temporary measure doesn’t change that.

> on a whim

it wasn't on a whim.

> ... is less egregious than doing so long term?

obviously it is, yes. For example, plenty of people just avoided travel during that time and managed to not have to use an app. If it was ongoing that wouldn't be the case.

The precedent that has been set is: if there is ever another crisis of that scale, using a smartphone app to try to mitigate it is one of the options on the table. That doesn't seem like a bad thing to me.

It still mandated that you sign a contract with one of those two companies giving up your right to privacy.

Mandated, if you wanted/needed to travel during a pandemic.

There are no mandatory government apps I am aware of. Not in the US.

Good luck parking around here without park mobile installed on your phone.

Not sure how it is elsewhere, but at least in Seattle we always have pay stations set up anywhere you have to pay to park. The pay by phone app is merely a convenience, and isn’t required at all.

Driving isn't a mandatory activity

1) parkmobile has a website version

2) parkmobile has meter boxes you can pay at near any available parking

How long has parking been something that needed an app?

If we're getting technical you can at least run the android app on a de-googled android device, assuming it doesn't require play services.

I tried that. It is hit or miss. Some days it works, other days not.

Technically you can live in a cardboard box instead of renting.

I can't even think of a single advantage over a key fob. Other than being a party trick that's cool the first time you show it to your friends.

I can think of a single advantage: one less thing to carry. In the extreme, all you'd need to carry would be your smartphone/PDA; everything including your identity card would be in it.

We here are all technical people, and can easily see the myriad ways in which this can fail (starting with: what happens if your phone battery does not have enough charge), but if you ignore all these many disadvantages, one can sort of see an utopic ideal behind it.

(In real life, I've seen people do the "all you need to carry is your smartphone" trick by using phone cases: some phone cases have small pockets, in which one can stuff an identity card, a bank card, and a single key without the ring, without getting it too bulky.)

> I can think of a single advantage: one less thing to carry.

This system _adds_ the requirement of carrying a smartphone. This is one _more_ thing to carry not one fewer.

> if you ignore all these many disadvantages, one can sort of see an utopic ideal behind it.

Yes it is true that if you ignore all the problems in a system, then the system has no perceived problems.

I don't understand. Is this supposed to be cheaper or more reliable than old fashioned keys and/or regular RFID-tags?

If so, cheaper for whom?

If the landlord is also providing me with a device to run said app fine otherwise they provide a key.

Say to the landlord: Ok but I want it on record that if I come home late one night with a dead phone and I need help from a random stranger to help charge my phone, but instead this stranger decides to kill me, that's on you.

We didn’t listen to Richard Stallman or Ted Kaczynski when they warned us about this. And now it’s too late.

Ted Kacynski was a deranged murderer who tried to down a commercial airliner and spent the last "free" years of his life, if you can call them that, using a hole in the corner of the shack he lived in as a toilet. He's probably the only person in the history of the country whose own life was improved by incarceration at ADX Florence.

Kacynski is a distinctively stupid person to ask for reflections on modern life. Whatever you think of Stallman, putting him in the same sentence as Kacynski is calumny.

I'm not even listening to you!

The iPhone and its consequences have been a disaster for privacy.

I wish we could interview Ted and explain the current situation of Chat GPT, app based door locks, QR code restaurant menus, mandatory covid apps, the metaverse, Amazon wage cages and crying booths, etc.

He wrote that original manifesto before the smartphone, basically before the internet and social media, but it’s only become more true in the 20 years following.

Could always interview GPT's take on Ted.

Last time I checked, Ted was still alive, serving his prison sentence. But I understand he receives letters and answers them.

He’s a dude who bombed and maimed people, what are you on about?

Sure, you don’t have to agree with that to recognise the writing he published was an extremely accurate view on modern society. The problems be highlighted have only gotten worse.

His solution was absolutely terrible, but that doesn't have to mean he was wrong about his analysis.

Anyone know name of said app? Pretty please.

late on paying rent and the app automatically denies access or incremental payments ala PKD’s Ubik.

That should simply be illegal.

How does this work for blind people???

From the article:

> A tenant with a disability should notify the landlord of their need for a reasonable accommodation, requesting an alternative to the app, like a traditional key. If the landlord does not comply with the request, the tenant can file a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights

I imagine this exception would also apply to some conservative Jewish tenants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_on_Shabbat

> The Conservative movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards has argued that "refraining from operating lights and other permitted electrical appliances is a pious behavior," but is not required, while also stating that the use of some electrical devices (such as computers, cameras, and smartphones which record data) is forbidden on the sabbath

Don’t know if it’s changed but historically iPhones has stellar usability and were very usable for blind people. Applications are more of a crapshoot, all the affordance APIs are here but they have to be used.

Yes.

If it works properly...

>But it needs to work, and you mentioned that yours is unreliable. If the system fails, the landlord has to fix it and provide you with an alternative method of entering the building and your apartment. Put your complaints about the problems in writing. If the landlord fails to address them immediately, file a complaint with the New Rochelle bureau of buildings.

I wish American tenants would learn to be more assertive about this stuff. Tenants are entitled to continuous, uninterrupted, unimpaired enjoyment of their homes. If you cannot enter the property, you cannot enjoy it, and there's not some kind of cooling off period where the landlord gets to work on it. You have a cause of action from the first moment.

Do you think tenants in other countries would be more assertive?

A relative's daughter died in an apartment fire because the smart lock she had installed in her apartment malfunctioned under heat and locked her in her own house. She was the only casualty in the fire.

I've sworn off anything "smart" for critical infrastructure since then.

Sounds like something fire safety regulators might want to look into. Any smart lock system should be required and thoroughly tested enough to guarantee that that won't happen.

Also, what happens when electricity is out or you don't have a data connection for some reason?

This was in India so really can't expect much in terms of regulation. The market is flooded with Chinese products that rebadged and sold by local companies.

A lot of IoT tech outside of India uses Chinese products as well. Consumers don't ask questions as long as it's cheap and looks cool.

I remember a talk from a few years ago where someone in Germany could unlock all rent bikes in the vicinity by sending the Chinese manufacturer's default password...

Not just IoT tech. Lots of cheap Chinese products of many different kinds don't meet the requirements of other markets. There's even the infamous "Chinese Export" logo that's intentionally almost identical to the European "Conformité Européenne" mark that signifies a product meets EU standards. Much of the Chinese export economy sees to be based on deceiving consumers in other countries.

[0] https://starfishmedical.com/blog/conformite-europeenne-mark-...

This thread exemplifies that quote:

>Any change (invention) that happens before you're 10 is just life. Any change that happens after you're 35 is a disaster and should be banned.

Any technology invented when you're a child is cool, up until the point you learn about the bad parts.

You can only read so many reports of IoT devices causing damage, violating human rights or killing people until you realise a simple physical lock might not be that bad.

Maybe I'm born old. But I'm not yet 35 and feel that everything to do with mobile apps was mistake and should have been banned.

I think that is definitely the mood right now. But really? Is that actually a smart rational response or are we just getting caught up in the inevitable backlash?

I like my banking apps, I can see my balance and move cash and pay for things instantly and more securely. Maps with GPS (and public transport integration) is a god send. I see only very very minor downsides to these. To be clear, there is plenty that I don't like (privacy has basically gone to zero for a start, plus the distractions). I just think we were in "unreasonable optimism" for the first 8ish years of smart phones. Now we are in "unreasonable pessimism" mode. Neither were reasonable responses.

I wish we could just skip to reasonable responses mode (pass a law requiring buildings over 10 residences to offer keys so you can always get one if you want and then let everyone get on with it?).

Banking apps. The most insecure way to do things.

I have read the local news. Some old person is scammed, by making a fake site getting first the account id and the password for identification and then asked to provide secure on time code. And now after the app is installed it is fully trusted and the scammer is free to steal all the money.

Where as with website you need to verify each transaction with one time code.

If I was there when legislation was written I would have banned making transactions and approving them on same device.

That would ban cash machines wouldn't it?

I can see the need for a "non tech user" account for old people. Why not just mandate that as an option and let those of us happy with apps (which I think are much more secure than websites because you cannot divert/phish them) get on with it?

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