A play on the phrase “open sesame,” Candy House is hoping to usher in an entirely new era of smart home entry.
With the rise of in-house connected devices such as thermostats and lights over the last couple of years, there certainly has been no shortage of smart locks in 2015. However, a majority of them require a phone or some sort of code to gain access. Imagine instead of having to sift through your belongings in search of keys, just a knock on the front door could do the trick — much like the method used for entering your treehouse or special fort as a child. That’s the idea behind Candy House’s latest product, anyhow.
Sesame — which recently hit Kickstarter — is smart lock that lets you get inside your home with a secret knock on either the door or phone. Beyond that, the system comes with an optional Atmel based Wi-Fi bridge that plugs into a nearby wall, enabling owners to remotely control the lock, share access to guests and receive notifications whenever the door is opened and closed via its companion mobile app. Sesame will even automatically lock behind you — something that’ll come in handy for the forgetful type.
Candy House claims its interface is simpler, connection time is faster and the unit itself more affordable than others on the market today. Impressively, the easy-to-install device fits on any existing lock in seconds, without having to remove or swap anything. In fact, its creators claim that users can affix their gadget to a door with a single strip of 3M Command tape.
“Have a weird lock? No problem. Our five-patented design works with just about any single cylinder deadbolt in the world,” a company rep explains.
The Wi-Fi Access Point runs open-source OpenWrt Linux and uses 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and a Bluetooth LE 4.0 radio. It’s also fully-compatible with Arduino IDE v1.5.4 or later, making it an ideal choice to connect Bluetooth devices to a home/mesh Wi-Fi network. The lock features a built-in accelerometer tasked with detecting special knock patterns and a multi-color LED indicator light. As for power supply, Sesame lasts approximately 500 days on lithium batteries and will alert a user when the batteries are low through its app.
The device, which resembles that of an old-school kitchen timer, measures in at 3.36″x 2.21” and weighs just over 6 oz. For the launch of its Kickstarter campaign, Sesame comes in a variety of colors including piano black, leather white, metallic silver, champagne pink, and a two-toned light wooden with a beige center. What’s more, the gadget boasts an additional layer of security with AES 256-bit and TLS 1.2 encryption.
Those who can’t say goodbye to their keys completely, or worry about Sesame’s battery dying, can take comfort in knowing that they can still use a traditional key to open the door.
Interested? Head over to its official crowdfunding page, where Candy House is currently seeking $100,000. Pending all goes to plan, the first batch of Sesames are expected to ship at the end of April 2015, with additional units slated for May and June. If the campaign is able to attain its $2 million and $3 million stretch goals, the team says it will explore the use of voice commands and facial recognition, respectively, as means of access.
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