Fingerprint reader

Hey all

I've looked at some of these on fleabay ; (from China of course) but am reluctant to commit!
I'd ideally like an external one for entrance to my front door so need something *reliable*

Be even better to have one integrated within a video doorbell i.e. 1 unit rather than 2/3 bolted to the wall.

Anyone taken a punt on one and successfully linked it up to Indigo?

There are a couple parts missing in your equation, but what you are considering is doable..... but I wouldn't recommend it.

A finger print reader is one of the more problematic biometric solutions out there. Think of a fingerprint reader on a cell phone and how it disagrees with your finger after a shower or if you have worked up a sweat.... now imagine being stuck at your front door with an arm load of groceries on a rainy day waiting for your finger to dry to get in.

If you really want to go biometric, look for a vein scanner... but I think that would be overkill for a home.

Whatever authentication method you use.... biometric, RFID, Bluetooth, pin pad, etc..... that price will either have a built in relay or attached to some other type of relay device. (Typically so the action that authenticates can trigger a relay to open a lock.

Anything with a relay can be wired into an I/O device and integrated with indigo. (To monitor the activity of the device, activate the device, or both)

Not meaning to pee in your chereos.... your concept (if I'm thinking through it correctly) sounds awesome....

Video door bell... unrecognized finger = ding-dong. Recognized finger = door unlock.

Now, if you were going to combine the two technologies.... I would look at a door bird video station. Some of their larger models might have enough space in the case to add extra hardware like a fingerprint reader..... but I would consider adding the fingerprint reader to the side or bottom of the housing to limit random delivery folks and whatnot from messing up the fingerprint reader.

Anyway... just a couple random thoughts on the topic... trying to be helpful.

Hey!

Some good ideas there!
I agree the finger print reader to enter your house has a few issues
My plan was assuming you got in via that I still have a wall mounted iPad or similar running indigo and you need to manually enter a 'disarm' code.

I was thinking about geo fence based on phones. So when myself and the wonderful wife are out (i.e. neither phone is within our home ) the alarm is armed. But what if she forgets her phone?; or someone else is staying there whilst both phones are absent.

Doorbird sounds ok; but expensive for what it is. After all I could via indigo stick a ip camera out there with a microphone. A button to trigger z wave or similar as a door bell and effectively have the same.

I did consider facial recognition - but I need to wait for the technology to improve a bit!!. Also ALL this must be wife proof! - this is a big ask!!!

Start off with triggering a light or something.....

I did the geofence thing on our phones using Geofancy, then Geohopper now using HomeRemote. HomeRemote seems to be working the best with that.... plus it puts different easy access buttons on my phone's widget page ("Front Door Unlock", "Bill Home", "Garage Door", etc). HomeRemote will also put a page of buttons on an AppleTV (4Gen).

However, it is hit/miss with my wife's phone. (All the above platforms.... sometimes it would always show her has home even if we were both 10 miles from the house).... so it wasn't a good "Wife-proof" solution for me.

So... her geofence actions will just turn on the front porch lights and driveway lights when she is arriving back into the home geofence.

Sighthound is getting close with facial recognition... that would be a server software working with whatever camera you put facing out from your front door. You can do triggers off sighthound from within the sighthound software.... it's been a while since I experimented with it so I don't remember.

If your bluetooth is always on with your phones, there are some bluetooth relays on the market that after you pair with your phone, if you are in proximity (30feet +/-) it will close a relay (door unlock w/ electric strike.)

Yeah bluetooth would be fine.

I was thinking also the router would have the mac address of 'connected' devices. That would be simple and fool proof (!!!) if there were a way to 'get' that information from the router in a meaningful way.
Bluetooth range might work. But then you are assuming my wife won't turn her bluetooth off!!!!

The router thing can also be hit/miss. With my phone, everything worked great (I experimented with that back when you could easily get that data from an airport extreme). With my daughter's phone, as soon as her phone was inactive, it would drop off the network and report as "away". So, her phone would bounce around on the network. If that was tied to a door lock, then I would have a lock randomly locking and unlocking.

There are some other plugin's available for presence detection..... give it a shot.... but I would start with using it with a lightbulb and perhaps a trigger that maintains a log or sends you a message to see how it does first.... so when you get a text that your wife has left the house and she's sitting in the living room with you, you know you have to tweak stuff.

Presence Detection Plugins: http://forums.indigodomo.com/viewtopic.php?f=137&t=11516

I think both Geohopper and HomeRemote can also trigger based on bluetooth beacons. <- just to throw that back in there.

As for the auto-arming.... you could have the trigger send you a text instead... "Indigo detected you are both gone, your house is currently %%:variable id for alarm state %%" as a reminder to arm or disarm. You could also use the google SMS plugin to recognize texts..... so, that message would send and it would enable a pair of triggers for 10 minutes..... if googleSMS receives "Yes" action = arm system + send text "system armed". if googleSMS receives "No" = disable yes/no triggers. <-- something like that.

Yes ! More food for thought !!!