Inspired by the knock to open hack, [ashish] put together a fairly simple DTMF decoder to control solenoid door unlocker and connected it to a Nokia 1100 cell phone. Call the phone, input the magic code, and the door unlocks.
Cool. Talk about a useful diy improvement. I think the creator/author of the device should patent it, if it’s not already been patented, because this could make someone a fair amount of money, if it hasn’t already.
~Istarian
Posted at 4:53 pm on Jul 17th, 2007 by Istarian
I’d like to have more than one device wired into this cellphone.
Then I could do other stuff like turn on/off my pc.
Quite a nice hack though.
Posted at 6:18 pm on Jul 17th, 2007 by Genome
i know that the palm treo can open lock boxes for realtors, i suppose soon they will open your garage door as well….
Posted at 6:38 pm on Jul 17th, 2007 by Bonzi
#5: probably not all that farfetched of an idea. Though not sure about the stove in particular. But there are already IR controllers for lights/etc. Seems like it would be a short step to send the signal.
Good stuff!
Posted at 9:37 pm on Jul 17th, 2007 by Boudico
There are all ready programs out for cell phones that will control your home computer like you were sitting in front of it. I wrote one in Java myself. This was two years ago.
Posted at 10:06 pm on Jul 17th, 2007 by raver1975
The more things change, the more they remain the same. I rememeber seeing a project similar to this many years ago. It used the x10 home automation telephone decoder and appliance modules to control a solenoid door strike. If you lost/forgot your keys you simply called the automation from a neighbor’s house or pay phone, turned on the particular module and the door unlocked. This was well before cell phones were widely known and before most people had answering machines.
Posted at 2:03 am on Jul 18th, 2007 by Roger Jollie
#2, this kind of applications has been for sale for years, so this brings nothing new or worth of patenting.
Posted at 5:33 am on Jul 18th, 2007 by tom
thats what terrorists use to blow up car bombs etc remotely
Posted at 8:54 am on Jul 18th, 2007 by hank
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5390240.html
My buddy Ray already has the patent on that, #5.
Posted at 9:31 am on Jul 18th, 2007 by Jeff
For all you college students out there who have in-dorm landlines but never use them, just hook this up to your landline phone instead of a cellphone. Call your dorm to unlock the door, and you don’t have to worry about wasting a cell phone.
Posted at 9:34 am on Jul 18th, 2007 by jerm
Great project! Especially for every roadside bomber wannabe
Posted at 10:29 am on Jul 18th, 2007 by Mike Clayton
How many of you have ever used those voice activated menus? The one for the US Post Office never worked for me until I started calling it all sorts of dirty names. Then it worked great.
That sure would be fun to hack as an add-on to this… “Open the **** **** door you ****!”
Posted at 11:23 am on Jul 18th, 2007 by srilyk
The terror boys in Baghdad have been doing this for years. Of course, they aren’t unlocking doors when they dial their cell phones — just blowing them up!
Posted at 12:17 pm on Jul 18th, 2007 by DoctordD
Thats just what I was thinking #15
Posted at 12:46 pm on Jul 18th, 2007 by Wolf
a hacker would not even have to brute force it if the lock picks up the tones let out loud by the phone just hide a recorder to capture the tones
Posted at 1:16 am on Jul 19th, 2007 by ejonesss
Nice to see you posting real hacks again rather than wanking over Ben Heck.
Posted at 4:59 am on Jul 19th, 2007 by def
Phreaking will live again?
Posted at 8:43 am on Jul 19th, 2007 by Mike
Just check out Homeseer.com #5 and #12. It allows me to send a text message (or use DTMF tones or speak a command) to open my front door. I can also just walk up to the door and it recognizes my bluetooth signature and opens the door when I depress the doorbell button (which doesn’t ring inside in that instance).
Posted at 12:26 pm on Jul 19th, 2007 by Seth
IED makers all over the world love you.
Posted at 7:27 pm on Jul 19th, 2007 by lloyd
Hey everybody…
a friend of mine recently bought for a few euro (i think he bought 10 if this for 60 euro) a gsm unit (not properly a cell phone), that is old model from Ericsson and it has external connector for power,antenna,audio and serial!!! it’s cool, easy to implement something with it, since sim cards are so cheap, u could just use it to controll the door or heating or whatever…
Posted at 12:57 pm on Jul 20th, 2007 by map
Why not use a simple phototransistor that starts conducting when the backlight goes on. Then you don’t need a DTMF decoder!
Posted at 1:39 pm on Jul 21st, 2007 by Jasper
The idea is good, but security is low. Someone can record your DTMF tone and open the door.
Posted at 2:34 pm on Jul 28th, 2007 by Long Nguyen
wow this the gretest thing in the whole world…….zapppppp…
Posted at 9:45 am on Aug 7th, 2007 by AnanD
This sort of thing has been used by ham radio operators for remote control of radio systems for about 40 years. Before cell phones they used hand held radios and a device called a tone decoder for autopatch (remote control of telephones).
Posted at 12:48 pm on Sep 30th, 2007 by Chuck
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awesome I cant wait to build one
Posted at 3:41 pm on Jul 17th, 2007 by yappingboy