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nabla9

Choose better UX design.

1. Get a QR code to put at your door

2. Visitors scan the QR code using their smartphone camera

3. Get a notification on your phone wherever you are!

1. Install doorbell at your door.

2. Visitors press the doorbell using any of their extremities.

3. Get a notification on your phone wherever you are!

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The other good thing about Option#2 is that visitors do not have to give you their mobile phone number (which they are doing by sending the text).

Just because they are at your door for some reason does not mean they want to give up what has become their mobile ID. People are starting to get protective of it with good reason, since there are so many attacks using the Mobile #/ID...

Also, as pointed out elsewhere, the static easily duplicated QR code has issues for you, but it would also be easy for someone to slap a malicious QR code over your static one, disabling yours and enabling their scam...

Maybe I'm just the wrong generation, or live in a place that still has winter, but a QR code where I need to get out my phone, take off my glove in winter, activate the camera to scan, etc., seems a lot less welcoming.

One thing that is good about your QR code option is that you do receive notice anywhere and you do have their mobile number, so you can reply immediately with a text or call, such as "sorry, I'm running late, not quite home yet, I'll be there in 10min". Ofc, you could also post your mobile number below the wireless doorbell.

Perhaps Option #3 would be a doorbell that can display a scrolling message, so

— wireless doorbell

— sends text to you

— you can reply to doorbell (e.g., "coming downstairs now", or "traffic, be there in 5min", "pls call me at 987-654-3210", etc.)

This way, no one needs to reveal their mobile number, but everyone has the advantage of mobile communications, albeit with a small bandwidth.

How did you come to the conclusion that the mobile number is in play anywhere?!

From what I read it says to scan the code and get a notification anytime it's scanned. Just looked at the android app listing and there seems to be something about taking a selfie which seems rather useless but hey maybe some people like it.

Also love how people keep suggesting wireless doorbells when the whole point of this is not to install any hardware that could be to expensive, harder to setup/maintain than a QR code, or maybe stolen/damaged or not allowed to be installed

Seems it is the visitor's phone scanning the QR code, which means whatever mechanism sends the text has all the identifiers of the phone which scanned the QR code, right? If it protects the visitors' numbers from disclosure, that's great, but there is no assurance (and none that could be given and absolutely trusted) that they are not disclosed.

OK, maybe the point is to not install any hardware (beyond a sticker), but it seems people are pointing out that a QR code introduces more problems than it solves (trust, spoofing, copying, misdirecting, inconvenience, etc.). If he wants to install no hardware and get a text on his phone, perhaps the easiest thing is to post a sticker with "pls text me at [mobile number]" at the location of the doorbell or QR code?

It would be possible to encode the phone number in the QR code and just send a text, but then you could just print out the phone number and write "text me" next to it.

Given that they have an app I'm sure the QR code leads to a link that will trigger the notification via app on the phone, no text message anywhere.

Again to your last point, no text message, dude just wants to get a notification on his phone without installing some dumbass $300 doorbell

Choose better UX design from visitor's perspective

Knock on the door while ignoring anonymous QR code that could have been left by anyone

This is my nr 1 question, will visitors scan the QR or will they still prefer to knock/phone?

I hate it when people call/text me to say "I'm here". You know what else you could do to let me know that you're here? Knock or ring the bell. It's definitely a generational thing though. Having lived in a time with and without devices, I'm really thankful that I didn't grow up never not having a device. This is a good example of unable to think of how to operate without a device

One reason I and a number of people do that: to cover the possibility you might be at the wrong door/house or ringing the wrong doorbell.

I had both of those problems at my previous residence. It was an apartment complex with some N½ addresses. Visitors would often miss that bit and be at the wrong door. On top of that, the doorbells were counterintuitive: they were arranged vertically, but the bottom doorbell would ring the top apartment and vice versa, so I forever had visitors and deliveries ringing the wrong bell (and actually mostly for the other units ringing mine.)

Also if someones just dropping by (unscheduled delivery, sales) and I'm asleep, or watching a movie, or whatever I don't want to be disturbed, and if I have a question for my neighbors similarly I don't want to bother them if they're busy. Phones have snooze mode, most doorbells I've encountered don't.

I usually text/call when I visit people not so often like once a year or once in couple years because usually I don’t remember exactly which number it was.

If I go somewhere couple times a year I usually feel quite comfortable using doorbell.

I do this all the time even when I know I'm at the right place as my friends have young kids and I usually turn up around when they might be in bed, so I tend to just message my mate I'm there to see that I'm ready and outside. Both of us are in our late 40s.

Wow that’s a surprisingly aggressive comment. I’ll share why I used to text and call “I’m here”. I’ve had many experiences where the residents had dogs that would absolutely lose their minds and bark non-stop or go crazy when you ring the doorbell. It’s just a better experience when their owner opens the door and there’s a guest. Other times, my friends lived in a multi-unit apartment and I didn’t want to bother 5 other people who I didn’t know. Other times they lived with their family and, again, just didn’t want to talk to them that time. -shrug- but I guess these are examples of not being able to think without a device.

For you, if you’re expecting guests, just tell them to ring your doorbell. Get rid of the ambiguity and give them comfort in knowing the “right” thing to do. You clearly gave it some thought and have strong opinions about it. I’m sure other people are just trying to be considerate in a generation where they mostly grew up living with lots of other people.

> For you, if you’re expecting guests, just tell them to ring your doorbell. Get rid of the ambiguity and give them comfort in knowing the “right” thing to do

I'm not the person you're replying to, but the way I see things, if I put a button on the front of my house labelled "visitors, please press me" and then I got mad at my visitors for pressing it, that would be super weird behaviour on my part. The button is the permission.

People who don't want visitors to press the bell either remove it, or tape a bit of cardboard over it or something.

Sure, I think if a doorbell exists, it's fine to press it. For me, I just don't want to get overwhelmed by their barking dogs or greeting 4 other people. Sometimes, I'm just not in the mood and just want to see my friend one-on-one. I'm not doing it for other people. I'm doing it for myself because I find the experience of calling someone when I arrive to be a lot more pleasant in some cases. Those cases happen to occur more often when my friends are young. i.e. living with lots of other people or with their parents and family dogs.

Well, usually.

Our doorbell, which was non-functional from when we moved in until we moved out eight years later, and which we were always planning to fix 'next week', is a good counterexample.

Not that we'd get mad at people for ringing the doorbell, but we were very glad that people usually figured out they had to knock.

I hate when people ring the doorbell. I'd rather they just walk in so I don't have to get up.

Some places don't have functional doorbells, and some doors are too far from living space for a knock to be heard.

Some renting situations make solving those problems difficult, annoying, or impossible.

But yeah, generally a doorbell is a pretty reliable tool.

> Some places

That's probably true, but I don't live in some places. I have a door with a knocker and a doorbell. Calling/texting me is so damn annoying and pointless. You knock/ring, I get up and answer the door. You text/ring, I might ignore it or at least it could take time to go to where it might be sitting other than in my hand.

If you live in one of these "some places", I doubt the landlord is going to be very happy about people plastering various QR codes on their property, especially if "some place" is a multi-tennant property which typically already have a system in place

> but I don't live in some places

Great. I don't think OP made this thing explicitly for you.

And I'm not attempting to persuade you into choosing this doorbell option.

For others, who are not you, and who have different living situations than yours, this could be an interesting option.

The ‘system in place’ in question: two non-functional doorbells, a third wired up to your housemate’s room, and a fourth which only works on Tuesdays (nobody in the house knows why). :)

I disconnect that shit because of unwanted use.

Mailman, flyers, delivery not for me, neighborhood kids pushing wrong buttons or just fooling around.

If I have delivery scheduled or there is scheduled maintenance for building I will connect it for that day. Even delivery guys sms/call me when they are in area to check if they should drop by with parcel anyway.

People like friends/family don’t drop by without calling sending a message. There is no unscheduled visits since I was teenager.

I get annoyed by people knocking instead of ringing the doorbell. I am less likely to hear a knock.

I would not scan the QR code because that’s way less trouble. If the owner insisted on it I’d do it, but I’d roll my eyes and wondering why the owner thought this was an improvement.

I probably agree with your premise (it's not clear), but:

Scenario 1 (QR code) puts 100% of the infrastructure on the client (visitor) side, and scenario 2 (Nest, Ring, etc) puts 100% of the infrastructure on the server (resident) side. [Edit: strained metaphor perhaps, and yes both scenarios require connectivity infrastructure]

So these are completely different methods of achieving the same goal, and there are easily imaginable cases where one scenario would be preferable over the other.

Usually, server-side makes the most sense. Certainly in the case of a traditional wired or wireless dumb doorbell, it's simpler.

But there are cases where server-side is difficult or impossible, especially if you want "smart" features like photos or routing or two-way interaction. Higher cost, permission from property owner if renting, etc.

Pushing the infrastructure to client-side solves these problems. Most users will have the client infrastructure in their pocket already. No wires. No new piece of hardware to maintain, repair, keep charged, etc.

You can get a wireless doorbell for $25 which will require no permission from any reasonable property owner.

But this gives you the functionality of a $200 system (Nest, Ring, etc) for ~zero cost, and not all property owners will approve a Nest camera on their porch.

The way I see it, Nest and Ring are a $20 doorbell, plus a $10 range extender so you can hear the bell if you're out the back, plus a $170 home CCTV system because you're in a high crime area.

Seems to me a QR code removes the $170 bit that was a key part of the Ring camera value proposition.

I'm in a very low (nonexistent, really) crime area and I like the camera on the doorbell. Not worried about anyone breaking in, but being able to tell at a glance whether it's a package, a neighbor, or a salesman ... that's valuable.

The "ring me even if I'm not at home" feature has some value also.

And for people who do not live in high-crime areas, but might want the other features of a Ring camera, the value distribution would necessarily be different.

I wasn't thinking camera. Just a doorbell.

https://www.honeywellstore.com/store/products/portable-wirel...

Any recommendations for a $25 wireless doorbell that actually works? I went through two of them and both stopped working after a year. The location they need to be installed in is slightly exposed to the elements and it seems cheap doorbells really don't like that.

No personal experience unfortunately. I have a brass antique reproduction twist bell!

I would look for something like this: https://www.honeywellstore.com/store/products/portable-wirel...

If I'm already holding my phone in my hand why wouldn't I just call you?

The pizza guy, your neighbor, and firefighters don't always have direct access to your phone number.

The pizza guy and firefighters are not going to scan a QR code on your door.

How is scenario 1 100% on the client side?

Bad metaphor perhaps. Attempted to clarify above.

Not to mention a QR code excludes many people such as children and the elderly who might not have phones

Good point, I'm hoping that this increases access rather than decrease it. In my neighborhood there are plenty of homes without doorbells.

Maybe those people don’t want people to bother them. I keep the buzzer in my apartment turned off a lot of the time because random people buzz it trying to deliver things to my neighbours. We have a concierge desk for that.

I think a note feature explaining why they are there would be useful.

Knocking or a physical doorbell noise is fine for my house. But if I’m not home, they have no way to communicate with me unless they leave a note on the door, which requires them to have paper and me to not be traveling for days.

I agree, I've missed this feature myself. I wonder if the QR could be your away doorbell, "Gone fishing, leave a message"

I don't want people to know when I am out of the house. It drives me crazy when solicitors leave ads on my door handle, b/c I can be out of town for weeks.

And not everyone carries a smartphone to scan QR code - read, elementary kids coming over every evening to play :)

Option 2 requires power, which not all doors have. There are wireless doorbells, but perhaps OP doesn't want to have to remember to charge or swap batteries.

While option 1 requires connectivity, which not all doors have. I live in a large apartment block. There is zero phone signal at my front door. WiFi, yes, but I’m not giving some random access to my WiFi network.

My app idea is to tell guests to "Connect to this SSID to knock", and have a way of scanning for new MACs on the network and notifying the door owner... /s

For security of course it'll be an SSID that doesn't connect to anything else, because hey, we care about security. ;-)

Another app is: "connect to this SSID and ping6 2345:0425:2CA1:0000:0000:0567:5673:23b5 to ring doorbell!".

This sounds far too simple for something as complex as dealing with unsolicited attendance notification injections occurring at randomly defined intervals against a primary public<>private security surface.

Particularly when you consider that some of those attendance injections may contain potential threats or unsolicited commercial messaging, or be designed to cause interference with predefined private processes, or even be designed just to consume processor cycles in unnecessary communication processing across the security layer.

While I like your implementation suggestion it feels a little lightweight for something this important. Please revisit the scope and come back with a more fully fleshed out project proposal.

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