You can have fun with locks

I read about this guy who made an interesting locking box for a wedding present.  It is a locked box that will only open if is in a certain spot on the Earth.  It has a built in GPS and when you press the button it will tell you on the screen how far away you are from the location of it opening.  It also only allows you to press the button 50 times.  If you would like to read more about it here is a link to the guys blog.

http://arduiniana.org/projects/the-reverse-geo-cache-puzzle/

Green Environmentally Friendly Door Opener/Closer

So I am sure everyone has seen those Toyota commercials saying how they would use the braking power of something to convert it to power for something else. Well that is exactly what this company did in order to power this door opener. The way that it works is, there is one of those handicap buttons on the wall like we are all used to seeing that is powered by a small battery to tell the opener to open the door. Kind of like a garage door opener remote. When the opener gets its signal it uses the power of an internal battery to open the door. 

Now here is the cool environment friendly part. The battery gets charged when people who do not need the opener just push the door open.  Its kind of like door socialism.  I guess socialist door opener was skipped over for its name.  And with all the new laws about needing to have a handicap accessible door. It will save a lot of money over the openers that are powered by electricity. You don't need pay or the electric bill to run it, or the electrician to run the wires for it.  Unless of course your want to buy the most expensive door opener you can find in order to stimulate the economy.  In which case I total understand and will be glad to find it for you, and do my best to spend all that extra money. If you are worried about too many people running down the battery, or you just have too many people that are lazy press the button when they don't need it, at your door. In that case it can also be hardwired to run on normal power. At that point I guess you can just install that windmill in the back that you always wanted in order to stay "green". 

Secret knock unlocker

 Just when you thought that machines could not take any more jobs. Well I have bad news Mr. guy who opens the door at secret underground clubs and illegal meeting places, oh and that guy in the Matrix that is watcing out for agent Smith.  This clever guy has designed a rather amazing and impressive two in one lock. Not only is it the only machine that I know of that opens locks based on the sound of a knock, but it is also the most ugly lock I know of. 

So the good news is that you can now watch the video to entertain yourself for the next several minutes. The bad news is that all of you that are going for that cool tech, I make cool things out of things I got at radio shack and the plumbing section at Home Depot, Macgyver look will probably not be able to buy one. It pretty much looks like he is not going to put it into production any time soon.

I don't really think you would want this to be very wide spread anyway. I mean I imagine that everyone would use one of five different knocks. Kind of how everyone uses the word password for their password. OK, I will wait while you change your password now. All you would have to do is go try the couple different knocks and one of them would be sure to work. So all those wondering starving drummer music types would be the new non-starving, watching your new plasma tv types. I also Imagine it would cause a large problem in the Parrot owners community. Those dumb birds can never keep a secret. They would be singing your knock to everyone in town.

Well I guess It was wise to only make one. I did see he has incorporated it into a gum ball machine now. That is something a little more worthy of the knock knock security. Well thanks for reading the lock blog. Don't worry next time I will try to write about something that you can buy from me so that I have lots of money and you have awesome locks.  

 

Biometric Vehicle Starter

It used to be the only way to start up a car was with that shiny key, but now there are other options. The most common alternative is pushing a button.  Well if you’re not a fan of that route, now you can make sure you’re the only one that can start your car.  Instead of pushing buttons or turning a key, you just have to put your pointer finger right up to that tiny scanner.  If you’d like to allow a couple of other people to drive your car, you can have their fingerprints stored in the database.

Should you have a thief that’s watched too many spy movies and cuts off your finger in order to use it for the car, they’ll still be hosed.  After the fingerprint is confirmed it’ll then check for a pulse, blood pressure and body temperature, cut off fingers don’t have a pulse I’m afraid.  It even goes as far as to scan the capillary patterns underneath of the skin.  Despite that it checks several things, it won’t actually take long for all that information to be stored.  But you may want to store more than one finger and maybe a toe or two just in case you have to drive in order to escape the finger theif.  Being such an in depth gadget, this isn’t exactly a cheap item.  No, you’ll get stuck paying $699.95 for it at Sky Mall.

Standard Locks / Rekeying Explained!

Ok so watch the video first if you have not already done so. Watched it? Good, now that you are all excited, and how could you not be with that dramatic sound track, I will explain further. As you can see from the video for everyone of those little dips in your key, there is a stack of 2 pins and a spring pushing down on them. In a standard lock there are usually 5 stacks of pins.  Where the top pin and the bottom pin meet when the correct key is inserted is known as the "shear line". In order for the key to turn, all of the pins have to line up perfectly at the shear line.  If the dip in your key is too low then the top pin gets in the way of the lock turning and if the dip is too high then the bottom pin gets pushed too high and stops the lock from turning. So if only one dip in your keys is too high or low the key will not turn.

So now that you know how a lock works, you can understand rekeying.  When you call a locksmith to get your locks changed or rekeyed as we like to call it. We take the lock apart and change the little pins to new pins that have a different length as before.  Once we do that when you stick the old key into the lock the bottom and top pins do not meet at the shear line. So the lock will not turn with the old key, and we give you a new key that makes the pins line up correctly when inserted.  There you have it rekeying explained.  So no need to buy all new locks, just have us come out and rekey them for you.  

If you would like to have a lock rekeyed call us today at 586-991-1274.  We are having a sale on rekeys this month.  Check the www.brightlockandkey.com/sale-of-the-month/ section for more details.