Just what I need, for my phone to be dead at the end of the night and not only can't I call a friend to get a ride home, can't unlock my apartment, and now I can't unlock my bike either.
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.
Take your argument back to 2005, it still holds. And it didn't happen. Doesn't mean the bar I'm at has a charger or that I'm going to remember to charge my phone when I'm out and about doing whatever I do (movies, golf, bar, board gaming, lan party).
The failure case is still terrible and consists of me with a hacksaw at 3am on the side of the road "Stealing" my own bike.
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).
The pressure is to make the phones more powerful to do more with teh instegrahms, not to have longer battery life. If it were we wouldn't have gone from month long standby times (Nokia 5xxx) to partial day battery life (any modern phone with everything turned on). You can argue it all you want but battery is not growing faster much as our hunger for screen size, processing power, network use, memory, gps, etc are. Anything we can squeeze out of a battery will get gobbled up for quite a while.
Feel free to use something like this. It's geeky cool. I've just been burned by things like not being able to contact my ride from the airport, or my phone randomly deciding that it's just too dead to turn on at 8%, that I'm not trusting it for keys to my transportation / apartment.
For those things, if they have battery, like say my apartment combo lock, I want things with a good battery life (in the years) for the whole thing, a good failure state that I will always have on me (a combo), and obvious notification EARLY when the battery is going low.
Battery technology is not simply a product of consumer demand. There's all sorts of reasons why battery life is currently hard to increase which won't be solved by throwing more money at the problem. There are definitely some improved battery technologies on the horizon (particularly ones which use air), but the reality is that improving battery life without making an explosive is actually a hard problem to solve. Most of the gains of the past decade have come from reducing computer power consumption and shrinking down the electronics in devices (leaving more battery space), not from increasing battery capacity.
There will be improvements, but they won't be easy or particularly fast.
Well, I was imagining a comparison to the scenario where you had to go get a hacksaw, so you could just carry your phone somewhere. But sure, if there is a hacksaw right there, charging doesn't compare.
Yet this product exists now. It could be possible that there's a way to unlock from a laptop, but grogenaut's argument is pretty logical as of whenever Bitlock would launch..
edit: Didn't notice you were OP. If I were to use this product and my phone were to die, what could I do?
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.
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
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 same argument has been applied to Lockitron... connecting physical locks to the internet is just a bad idea.
More convenient, perhaps, but now in addition to jamming a pen into the lock or cutting the chain with a pair of cutters (or whatever myriad ways to physically assault the lock that there are) you have to worry about potential software exploits enabling remote entry from anywhere in the world. It seems to me that these things are, practically by design, exponentially less secure than their purely 'analog' counterparts.
Maybe this lock will have a physical key as well for just this scenario? Lockitron has that fallback option in the event that the electronics aren't working.
I did read that, but I would never use that feature. I need peace of mind knowing that my bike isn't going to unlock if I happen to walk by it or if I'm merely nearby.
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.
There really should be a combination lock for backup. Or a physical key.
I think it would be cool if you could program all these locks to take the same physical kay and then just have to carry one key around. That way, you could lose it all at onc...oh wait, flaw discovered.
Comments
Just what I need, for my phone to be dead at the end of the night and not only can't I call a friend to get a ride home, can't unlock my apartment, and now I can't unlock my bike either.
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.
Take your argument back to 2005, it still holds. And it didn't happen. Doesn't mean the bar I'm at has a charger or that I'm going to remember to charge my phone when I'm out and about doing whatever I do (movies, golf, bar, board gaming, lan party).
The failure case is still terrible and consists of me with a hacksaw at 3am on the side of the road "Stealing" my own bike.
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).
The pressure is to make the phones more powerful to do more with teh instegrahms, not to have longer battery life. If it were we wouldn't have gone from month long standby times (Nokia 5xxx) to partial day battery life (any modern phone with everything turned on). You can argue it all you want but battery is not growing faster much as our hunger for screen size, processing power, network use, memory, gps, etc are. Anything we can squeeze out of a battery will get gobbled up for quite a while.
Feel free to use something like this. It's geeky cool. I've just been burned by things like not being able to contact my ride from the airport, or my phone randomly deciding that it's just too dead to turn on at 8%, that I'm not trusting it for keys to my transportation / apartment.
For those things, if they have battery, like say my apartment combo lock, I want things with a good battery life (in the years) for the whole thing, a good failure state that I will always have on me (a combo), and obvious notification EARLY when the battery is going low.
Battery technology is not simply a product of consumer demand. There's all sorts of reasons why battery life is currently hard to increase which won't be solved by throwing more money at the problem. There are definitely some improved battery technologies on the horizon (particularly ones which use air), but the reality is that improving battery life without making an explosive is actually a hard problem to solve. Most of the gains of the past decade have come from reducing computer power consumption and shrinking down the electronics in devices (leaving more battery space), not from increasing battery capacity.
There will be improvements, but they won't be easy or particularly fast.
A charging cable seems at least as easy to find as a hacksaw these days.
...and would be worthless in most locked-bike locations. There aren't too many electrical sockets available near parking meters and signposts.
Well, I was imagining a comparison to the scenario where you had to go get a hacksaw, so you could just carry your phone somewhere. But sure, if there is a hacksaw right there, charging doesn't compare.
Suppose you were to fasten a cellphone power-bank to your bike...
Yet this product exists now. It could be possible that there's a way to unlock from a laptop, but grogenaut's argument is pretty logical as of whenever Bitlock would launch..
edit: Didn't notice you were OP. If I were to use this product and my phone were to die, what could I do?
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.
So Bitlock can unlock any bike they want? The key isn't stored locally?
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
which still means that the bitlock server could grant anybody the ability to unlock your lock
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 same argument has been applied to Lockitron... connecting physical locks to the internet is just a bad idea.
More convenient, perhaps, but now in addition to jamming a pen into the lock or cutting the chain with a pair of cutters (or whatever myriad ways to physically assault the lock that there are) you have to worry about potential software exploits enabling remote entry from anywhere in the world. It seems to me that these things are, practically by design, exponentially less secure than their purely 'analog' counterparts.
Maybe this lock will have a physical key as well for just this scenario? Lockitron has that fallback option in the event that the electronics aren't working.
What's the point then? Honest question.
My U-Lock key is on my key chain, which is in my pocket. It takes more effort to take out my phone, unlock it, and open the BitLock app.
If you read the site, it says that it senses when you are close by and unlocks it automatically. You won't have to take out your phone.
I did read that, but I would never use that feature. I need peace of mind knowing that my bike isn't going to unlock if I happen to walk by it or if I'm merely nearby.
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.
Which is even better than what happens when I unlock my Toyota by accident. If I don't open the door within 30 seconds, it locks back up.
The problem is if you're standing next to your bike and a thief presses a button on the lock.
Ouch, my bike locks are always under tension. If I walk past and it unlocks, that means I can't walk past my bike without locking it again!
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.
Agreed. I'd rather have a battery powered bike lock that reads my thumbprint to unlock.
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.
There really should be a combination lock for backup. Or a physical key.
I think it would be cool if you could program all these locks to take the same physical kay and then just have to carry one key around. That way, you could lose it all at onc...oh wait, flaw discovered.
Exactly. This product seems like it was invented by someone who has never used a bicycle or a mobile phone.