Hacker News Reader

Comment by jbburt | Hacker News Reader

my apartment building in Boston (part of AvalonBay Communities) installed Latch last year, and I can't agree more with this article. sure, one 7 digit code isn't difficult to memorize, and I obviously memorized the code for the door to my unit. but in my building alone, there's one door to the main lobby; a first-floor main entrance; another first-floor entryway that requires opening two distinct doors sequentially; and, in the adjacent building where the gym is, there are at least three doors to enter the building from outside, plus a second door to the gym itself; and EVERY DOOR HAS A DIFFERENT CODE. it's an absolutely terrible system

View on HN

Even if you have no trouble remembering a seven digit code, there's nothing to stop a malicious actor who determines that code from entering your apartment. At least with physical keys you have absolute control over who has those keys, and don't have to worry about somebody spying on you as you're punching in the code.

The fact that it takes two seven-digit codes to enter your apartment (one for the lobby door, one for your apartment) only makes cracking the code more difficult; it doesn't change the basic problem that control over entering the building (and your apartment) is freely available to anyone who determines the code.

yup, it didn't take long before my kids friends all knew the code to our home.

LATCH is absolute garbage. Their Bluetooth often doesn't even work. And yeah, now without a phone, I am homeless.

That’s stupid: these locks should support multiple codes so everybody just enters their house code to get in. And a way to issue a temp code for visitors that isn’t anyone’s apartment code.

Then all it takes is one person with a guessable passcode for their apartment and strangers can get in and steal packages, etc.

I assume the users can’t self-assign the doorcodes.

Are you assuming that the exterior and intermediate doors have unique codes for each resident? That pretty much guarantees people will be carrying around the codes in their wallets for quite a while.

Either way anyone who visits once will have the front door and internal door codes and will be able to come and go as they please unless temporary visitor codes can be issued.

If every door has NFC why don't they just make physical cards like employee access cards or hotel key cards? They can still be logged, revoked, etc, the only "feature" lost is the Face ID/mobile phone passcode.

Their website says keycards /can/ be offered, just like physical keys (mentioned in the article). Apartment complexes opt not to support those things.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com