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Comment by sam29681749 | Hacker News Reader

What's the advantage of this over a traditional doorbell + a phone (which everyone already has)? If I'm home, I can hear them. If I'm not, they can just message/call me.

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I know it's situational, but going to a party where you don't have the host's number? Also in general if you want to be rung at a temp. location but not hand out your phone number? (e.g meetups at company premises where you only have a door bell at the wrong location)

I wouldn't call it a real replacement, but I can see a dozen uses.

> going to a party where you don't have the host's number

What? Door bells worked before phones existed.

See my sibling comment, not all apartments have accessible door bells.

Don't all apartments have an intercom? I suppose I just assumed they did.

Larger buildings with many units usually do have intercoms with two-way audio (and sometimes one-way video) and the ability for the resident to remotely unlock the door. Sometimes these work via telephone or Internet, so the resident does not even have to be home.

Smaller buildings with just a few units usually just have simple dumb wired doorbells. And they are usually not broken.

Different cities/neighborhoods have a different mix of larger and smaller buildings.

This QR code idea is interesting, because it lets you go from dumb to smart, bypassing all of the steps that would normally be necessary (cost, approval, installation, maintenance, etc).

It's not as "good" as Nest etc, but it gets you most of the way there for almost none of the hassle.

Not for me, probably, but interesting.

Doorbell or knocking solves this? What are the other uses you can think of? Genuinely curious because I don't see them.

I've been to several meetups here where the company has larger offices in a high rise tower and e.g. the meetup is on the 4th floor but the door bell rings in the 3rd floor reception, and because it's after work, no one is there. People arrive in a 30min window, so someone would have to stand at the entrance, or put signs everywhere, or let people wait. As I said, situational, but "scan code to let someone's personal phone buzz and not have their personal phone number posted anywhere" works as one case.

The other one was a party at someone's apartment and I only had their IRC and twitter handle but not their phone number, and they had a key pad at the entrance (long story, not their fault) and I didn't have the number. And yes, I tried to ping them but they seemed to ignore their phone so I had to wait for other guests to arrive anyway.

My third example would be temporary event locations where there simply is no door bell or the organizers are not where it would ring and again, a phone works but it would leak the caller's number and the organizer's number whereas I suppose you can just uninstall the app or have different URLs generated that stop buzzing after a while.

Situational, as I said.

1 & 3 seem reasonable applications for this, but I don't see it as a replacement for a doorbell. 2 seems just like a minor organisational blunder.

Traditional doorbell needs an electrically powered button on the exterior. Phone needs visitor to have your private contact info or you would need to publicly add a note with that to your door.

If you don't want to use electricity, you can have a knock.

What reason would you want to be notified of unknown visitors knocking on your doors when you're away? The only people I can see fitting this description are delivery drivers & salesmen?

Further, what if you're home and your phone is in another room, is on silent, or is dead?

What is you have a spouse or housemate? Do both of you get notified?

And there's also a subset of people who get frustrated by having to use QR codes in restaurants, who I suspect would be equally frustrated by this.

There are battery powered remote doorbell buttons. Eg, $29 at Ace Hardware, with a 100 foot range - https://www.acehardware.com/departments/hardware/safety-and-... .

Also, a real traditional doorbell is mechanically coupled to the bell, with no electricity at all.

QR solution needs the visitor to (a) have a smartphone with charged battery and (b) Internet connectivity. Quite common, but wont work for everybody.

Grandma delivering cookies is out of luck. To be fair, if you don't have a phone you could just knock. But then you could just knock to begin with.

I have a few ideas about this,

One thing I've found useful so far is that the notification sound is different from my phone/message chime, so when I hear it I know it's someone at the door.

I'm curious to hear what other people think?

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