mehrdad

Mehrdad from Picovoice here; We have made several models available for use in personal projects for free on our GitHub page. https://github.com/picovoice

original poster here: all of the internal electronic components are water proofed and the battery operates under extended temperatures (currently the same batteries are used in north pole for remote sensing)

But if the water freezes inside and prevents the actuator from moving, then the lock won't work. the same can happen to the mechanical locks...if the water gets into the key hole and freezes there or freezes up the locking mechansim

original poster here: please wait till the kickstarter launch. it's happening very soon. all that information will be on our kickstarter page.

Original Poster: Unfortunately no. because the lock has no direct data connection. Besides, it will probably too late by the time you get to your bike...unless you are very close by.

original poster: exactly! that's the main point. This is designed to enable for small scaled bike share systems. you can share the location and access of bikes with a (close or open) group of people. As the owner of the lock, you set the terms. you can also assign people as admins so they can also manage permissions.

* Finally, you should disclose that this is your project when commenting on it.

I apologize about that. I kind of assume it was clear but thanks for the reminder.

If you want to share bikes, hand-off of keys will be an issue. With BitLock for example you can share 3 bikes between 10 people. with the app on your phone you can geolocate bikes and lock/unlock easily.

If someone manages to steal your bike, they probably damage the lock to get it. In case someone steals your lock or you lose your lock, you can disable it remotely.

as the owner of the lock you can manage permissions through the app.

Also you can apply the same argument to Lockitron. They can grant access to anyone to open your door lock and I believe you have more valuable stuff at your house.

The key would be only stored locally if you are the owner of the lock, otherwise you have to login to the app and check out a temporary (dynamic key) to unlock

In 2005 there were not as many smart phone out there as day. Plus we are getting more and more dependent on your smartphone. We use it for calls, navigation, emails, not to mention facebooking! soon it will be your wallet as well. So this creates a lot of pressure as well as incentives for smart phone makers to get ahead of competition of things like battery life. Note that innovation in smart phones has almost died. Apple is struggle to innovate (still they are doing some stuff with fingerprint scanner, motion processors,...) but the next big thing for them will be the battery life in terms of hardware innovation.

a final note, the battery innovation does not even have to be that much of a breakthrough. if your phone lives for a couple of days on a single charge, then the probability of running out of battery will decrease dramatically (since most people charge at least once every two days).

1 - Compared to picking a lock, hacking AES-128 is lot more difficult :D 2 - The battery last up to 5 years on average usage (lock&unlock 5 times a day) + you get a notification on your phone when it is time to replace the battery.

No we are not use a one time password. The key changes every time interact with the lock to stop man-in-the-middle attacks. We use AES-128 encryption that is the access control industry standard (and we think it is enough).

As a side note, I have PhD in embedded system security, although most of these things are crypto 101.

Nothing happens until you interact with the lock. So it won't automatically lock and unlock. You have to press a button on the lock to lock/unlock.

As a consumer product, BitLock is targeting a niche market (like any other keyless locks). It is way more convenient than a regular lock. You don't have to carry a key with you plus the interaction is seamless. Also we never have to deal with lost bike keys. However an important side application for this lock is bike sharing. For example, You can setup a bike share system among your friends on college campus. This you can't do with regular locks.

Imagine there's a button instead of the key hole. press it once = open, press it again = close. If you are out of range, press it = nothing happens.

The lock just does't pop.

a) The lock does not fall off. It basically grants you the permission to lock and unlock directly from the lock. Imagine replacing the keyhole on your lock with a button and everything is the same. You don’t even have to touch your phone. Leave it in your pocket. b) You CAN share access with other remotely. But both people must have internet access on their smart phones (most people do)

Wheel locks are great don’t work everywhere. People don’t consider them safe. The other problem is that they may not be compatible or fit with all kinds of bikes. You don’t to pay for data plan on BitLock. You just need to have internet on your phone.

There are two sides when it comes to the lock security. First is the structural security.

Comparing to the locks in the market in terms of structural security we are well above average. We can't beat Kryptonite New Yorker but we are as good as other Kryptonite U-Locks. Note that every lock in the market can be easily compromised with an angle grinder. The amount of extra (structural) security you get per dollar has a diminishing return. For example, a $60 lock is probably six times more secure than a $10 lock, but $100 lock maybe hardly twice as secure as a $60 lock.

In terms of electronic key security (or keying security), there is no way to hack the lock. Everything is encrypted using 128-AES (access control industry standard). Plus we make sure our keys have are completely random and have maximum entropy. On a side note, I have a PhD on embedded system security, so you can probably on this one. We are also going to send BitLocks to a group of hackers in Germany and challenge them to compromise the security of the locks.

A final note, encryption even the lousy ones are way more secure that the mechanical keying systems. Most locks can be picked by professional lock pickers.

you don't have to touch your phone to lock and unlock. as long as the app is running, you only interaction with the lock. you can leave your phone in your pocket. Also, with the new features on IO7, you don't even have to keep the app running.

One option would be to borrow someone else's phone and log into the BitLock app and use their phone to lock and unlock. You can technically lock/unlock from your macbook/ipad since both have build-in bluetooth 4. But currently the app only works with iphone and android.

that will complicate everything! and also increase the cost. besides you can't harvest much energy from that kind of mechanical movement...

one less thing to carry. no more lost keys or searches to find them. Ease of use. With the bluetooth 4 ease of connectivity, interaction between your smart phone and locks will be invisible. sharing access: something you can't do with physical keys.

The battery life issue of smart phone is coming to an end. Basically battery life will be the prime feature of competition for smartphone makers from now on. Wireless charging, better battery technologies, and etc means the probability of your phone dying on you is going to decrease considerably over the next few years.

We are launching on Kickstarter soon. Please stay tuned. Meanwhile feel free to shoot me an email with any question you have! m.majzoobi@gmail.com

We have been working on this for about a year.

Basically, the biggest technical and design challenge was the battery life.

We wanted to make the lock in a way that the user does not have to charge the lock/battery nor has to worry about replacing the battery at least for a couple of years.

To accomplish that, we had to look across all of the components that consume power. On the radio side, bluetooth LE solved that problem for us. Since we are sending data in bursts and the amount of data transferred is so little, the radio power consumption is almost negligible. We also use an ultra low power micro-controller with intelligent power management to low power consumption when the lock is not in use. The biggest power sucker was the mechanical actuation system. So that became more of a mechanical design and engineering problem. Using a solenoid was our of equation. There are extremely inefficient. We design the lock so that the actuator movement is minimal and is driven by a very low power motor. However there was one last issue. Most of the off-the-shelf batteries leak energy and deplete even if you are not using them after a 1-2 years. We are now using an advance lithium battery technology that has a very high energy density as well as very low leakage rate (This technology is commonly used to power sensors in remote sensing and telemetry application)

Eventually when the battery level drops low after a few years, you can notification on your phone and you can then replace the battery.

"As another example, let’s say that you have a great idea for a patent, but it’s not quite ready. Well, write it up into a file, then add the file’s signature to the block chain. Years from now, if somebody beats you to the patent filing, you can prove that you had the idea ahead of time."

Go file a provisional patent! the patent regulations have changed since March 2013 from first-to-invent to first-to-file!:D

If you are smart you can live in Bay area with under than $800 per month everything included (rent+food+bills+gas+insurance). That's what I am doing right now and working on my start-up at the same time.

I'd suggest quitting your job and traveling around the world for a couple of months. Go to unfamiliar countries such as India, China, Japan, Korea, Peru,....

It will open your mind and give you life changing experiences. Stop working on some app...Go for something big. it will come to you

And tell me again why customer service agent informs me that my voice is being recorded? I don't thing he/she just wants to be polite.

Personally I am offended by Google glass! and I refuse to talk to anyone filming and recording my voice me on Google glass. It's offensive on many levels. Google should work on a social etiquette for their product. Showing you a small screen on your end is your business, pointing a camera toward me, recording me and my voice is my business, and it can only be done with my permission, and it is "no". The only scenario that makes sense is that I am wearing Google glass and I can set a permission on my glass that others can film me with their glass or not.