Hi, I am looking for a Hardware solution first (a camera with built in functionality), and as second choice perhaps a software soltuion, but then it should work 99,99% of the time … to open my front door only to the members of my family (camera face recognition).
Is the technology enough advanced, or is it to unsafe?
Eventually I could add face recognition + beacon (the smartphone or something else).
I would say this is not safe at all. As an example; I think a photo of you would also unlock the door.
Why not just use a bluetooth beacon? When your phone finds the beacon, the phone will unlock the door. You can obviously extend this to the other phones in your household.
True, but I think if a thief is so sophisticated to have a picture of me and show it to a sort of hidden camera to enter … well he is smart enough to enter no matter the alarms system in place.
Why not the beacon? Because my experience has been terriblke so far … they rarely work in my case. I put the beacon as example, I should have added a different example(not sure what) or if face recognition is good enough … nothing else
Well you don’t have to be a wizkid to print a photo. And secondly what if the camera falsely detects a random person as one of your household? You would need to place a lot of trust in the face detection software to not give false positives! I think a keypad for example should be way safer.
I use beacons for a lot of things, never failed me once! Most of the time they are even faster then my motion detectors. What was the problem you faced?
I’m 100% with @Pippyn on the safety element, not forgetting that should you be robbed, if there is no trace of forced entry, your insurance may refuse to cover the costs…
But if you really want it, have a look at facebox
Is it going to be 99.99% working? Hell no!
There are just too many factors that would mean it can fail, starting from the resolution of your camera, when you trigger the facebox detection vs where the person is in relation to the camera, the angle at which the person looks at the camera, how well facebox has been trained for the various persons, the current light level, whether the person is wearing head accessories, haircut, well I could probably go on and on until tomorrow.
Is there any camera (without extra software) anyone recommends?
Anyone here working for the NSA or Chinese government, for a recommendation?
In general the Netatmo Welcome camera does this. But it’s indoor, so it doesn’t really help here. It also is cloud dependent, so face-recognition could fail because the webhook won’t be triggered.
That being said, using this approach to open a door is very unsafe. There’s a big difference between biometrics and f.ex. passwords. Passwords are either correct or incorrect. But biometrics only provide an accuracy of how probably is that the detection was correct. At least to my knowledge there’s no solution with a consistent 100% accuracy that a) always correctly detects when it should and b) always correctly not detects when it shouldn’t. After all it’s useless if it 100% of the time detects a legitimate person, but 50% someone else is detected a legitimate as well, even though he’s not.
Relying on a camera image alone in general won’t provide results accurate enough for such a use case. In contrast, the face unlock of iOs devices uses a three dimensional model of the uses head, which relies on infrared dots projected at the face. Which is fairly ok. A picture wouldn’t work in this case. And it also checks for movement in the face to ensure it’s not just a 3d-printed model of the head.
Anyways, if you want secure keyless entry, I don’t think there’s any commercial camera available on the market today that would meet the requirements. In case it should be (almost) contact-less (which excludes fingerprints from the list of options as well obviously), then I’d look for an option that relies on NFC. Some smartphones and smart watches then could be used to unlock the door. This at least would require the possession of a specific, whitelisted, physical item (not taking into account this might be copied). It would even be better if it requires an app, so opening the app requires unlocking the phone, which may rely on a finger print or face recognition on its own.
I don’t exactly believe front door prevents much( kick it in) and having it unlocked 24/7 is not a great idea but depending on where you live and home design this may not be risky(I stress that this is not best but there are places where people aren’t randomly walking up and checking doors…or front door may be secondary entrance in case of gated property)
That said, any decent camera mounted at proper height/location can do this using one of the HA integrations.
I would use nfc or something else but this could be OK. The unlocking due to false positive is not the issue as most people aren’t checking and would not notice. This sound of door unlocking however would be a literal invite to enter to anyone hearing it and mistaking it as you unlocking for them.
Yes it’s a front door if gated property
No one did reproduce ios face unlock in a standalone camera?
Sure they did. In various flavors. My Samsung smartphone can do this. It’s just that relying on simple RGB images is far less secure then also taking into account depth-information. So for me that is reason enough to not trust the implementation.
But then again, I’m pretty paranoid when it comes to security. If your environment allows a less secure solution, then the Netatmo Welcome I’ve mentioned - apart from being indoor and cloud dependent - would do the job. I’m using it to set certain device trackers to be at home. But that only happens if they’re already inside since the camera is inside, and it also doesn’t disarm the alarm (due to possible false positives).
Just wondering here - is the face recognition a “must”, or is it more “because I can and want to play with it”?
If security is not a big concern, and the main point is to unlock the door when you are approaching, I think I would use presence detection and the home zone.
Probably an automation that unlocks the door when a member of the family enters the home zone, and locks it again a few minutes later.
It is nowhere as fun as face recognition, but probably a lot easier to set up, and at least as reliable. It will leave the door unlocked for a short time if you are just passing by your home and don’t intend to go inside, but it does not sound like that would be of great concern here.
Why not use both a beacon and facial recognition?
I have a finger print scanner that opens my door. It is just a slight delay and it is also not dependent on HA but it works with. Since it is very important I can get into the house. The good part is that i never need keys and that my kids when they are like 5+ years I can learn their finger and they can come in. No more loosing keys for the kids, and you can open the door remotely too.
well from a security point of view is considered high risk (thieves can cut your finger … ) .-
Nevertheless I am interested, which solution is it?
You pay a price but you can make it as expensive as you want. You get use some up ports to trigger whatever device you have to open te door.
Nice, but which protocol is it (zigbee zwave), or is it wired? And what is then opening the lock??
Also do not understand where to buy it and prices
There should be local dealers in pretty much every country. It is wired yes, but something so important i don’t want to be reliant on wireless either. It just has a box with some up points where you can push on a simple 2 letter screen buttons to learn fingers. You do need a motorized slot, but you need that anyway if you want to open the door. All those cheap solutions where you place some device on your door hinge is just asking for trouble. Battery drain, low range, not enoug power, etc etc. Sure some are nice but again would you really rely on a gimmick for your front door? I don’t but then it costs more.
Reader:
Here comes power into the door.
The device to learn the fingers. Say which finger and swipe the reader outside. I opened it up so you can see it has multiple outputs too. I have a door sensor too to notify if the door is still open etc.
Hope this gives you an idea.
I know this is late but I’m thinking about the same thing. I worry about safety issues as well my plan at this point when I get around to messing with it would be facial and nobody else unrecognized and probably a beacon. So if wife walked to the door with someone who’s come to do some work she will have to physically open the lock.These are my plans as of now but I’m going to read the rest of the thread to see what was suggested and/or done
The solution around your picture could be a heat sensor targeted at the face possibly. But even then we could come up with a bunch of other situations. My wants this ability too so when she comes home from the store. LOL
