Peeple Is a Smart Peephole to Upgrade Your Door with Caller ID | Hacker News Reader

Peeple Is a Smart Peephole to Upgrade Your Door with Caller ID

techcrunch.com

35 pointsColinWright32 comments

It sends every picture to a server somewhere before sending the push notification. Not sure I like that very much.

I'm definitely a big fan of the convenience such devices, and even the simple indoor cameras, bring, but the paranoid part of me always wonders about how easy is this for someone else to access?

Not to mention being an amazing vehicle for a surveillance state - want to see all people who visited someone? No problem!

Well, even if the vendor secures the data properly, there's always third-party doctrine, so as it stands today, you may never know if government or law enforcement accesses your door logs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine

It's a little premature to complain when the service isn't built yet, but yes, a less privacy-hostile design would be nice.

You are ridiculous

Well whats the other alternatives? Sending images to devices on a shared network, or having a server in your house/phone which receives the images. All of them are quite unpractical, most people don't know how to setup a server in their home, heck most people won't know how to even forward ports (hence UPNP in CPE/SOHO routers).

Running a server on your mobile device isn't an option on all platforms, many cellular ISP's don't provide you with a "legal" internet IP but rather use NAT, and running server software on mobile phones is probably a bigger security risk than this.

And while some might say well they could've used dropbox or any other similar storage yes they could, but no one in their right mind would ever design a product which relies on a 3rd party like that since that 3rd party can (and they often do) change the TOS or scrap the service you rely on completely.

This device isn't for people who are paranoid about their security and privacy, you don't put a device which takes a picture of anyone who enters your house if you worry about privacy in the first place. This device is for people who want convenience and as long as it's cheaper than an intercom with a camera in it or is much easier to use it's fine. This is actually quite nice solution for various apartment / condo complexes, you can buz a delivery guy into the hallway when you out and about if they hook it into the buzzer.

a) You could use encryption; at a minimum you could render the image data opaque to the storage location. It would be much harder to protect metadata like time of access. You also lose the ability to view the data in a web application without voluntarily compromising security.

b) Perhaps sandstorm.io or owncloud integration.

I would be surprised if the company did anything like this though, it's unlikely to rise to high enough priority in their planned features list.

I agree that the set of people who worry a lot about this kind of privacy is unlikely to intersect much with the set of people who run a (closed source?) cloud integrated appliance on their door peephole, connected to a closed-source U.S. hosted web service.

>Well whats the other alternatives? Sending images to devices on a shared network, or having a server in your house/phone which receives the images.

Encrypt the image with a key that both your iphone and the device share, but the servers do not.

It still leaks privacy-sensitive information (what time somebody appeared at your front door), but it's better than the alternative, and perfectly feasible for a company that cares about the privacy of its users.

> Well whats the other alternatives?

E-mail.

An ftp server.

email isn't any more secure than their solution, heck it's probably less secure. FTP again insecure, FTPS/SFTP maybe but 99.9% of user don't know how to setup an FTP server and it's again goes back to the problem that then you need a server hosted somewhere which is a limitation that will kill the potential market for the product.

>Well whats the other alternatives?

Use a DHT to find your phone's current IP and send it point-to-point?

Something closely related I would like to see: a system to identify people ringing apartment doorbells that is visible to tenants. Buildings without video systems or doorpeople rely on "who's there?" as their only means of authentication. Something that could be created and installed cheaply without a major retrofit (so that landlords would actually pay for it) would be great. This device comes close, but seems to be targeted more at homeowners. The device I'm talking would need to be shared among many tenants, and robust enough to deal with drunken buzzer pounders.

As soon as you start working on the building, you pretty much have the replace the panel, as 1) it has to be secure, and 2) you have no guaranteed network connectivity.

The closest to what you are asking could be a 2N IP video intercom with a 2N 2Wire connector (uses the old copper/coax cable of the analog intercom system for IP), costs around $1,000.

People would then have to connect the network cable from the 2Wire box on their apartment side to their home router and setup their phone to connect to the intercom in P2P mode (intercom acting as SIP server).

Other options is connecting the intercom directly online, which makes setup much simpler but incurs a recurring cost for the building association.

A hack suggestion for someone who wants to build something that is more an upgrade than a replacement and address this better -- specially for panels which have individual buttons for each apartment:

  - build a camera only panel that can be added on the wall
  - camera has a built-in power supply that uses the doorbells panel power
  - camera has built-in PLN module that uses modulations on the doorbells panel ground
  - in your apartment, you setup a box that connects to your entry phone and grab the video feed from the ground PLN, grabs the triggering from the entry phone line, the box connects to your Wi-Fi network
  - the rest is software

I agree with @dogma1138. This device isn't for people who are paranoid about security. I am in NYC. They made attempt on my premises 4 times. These mofos came in broad daylight. I got cameras and sensors everywhere plus alarm service. They have multiple lookouts on phones. Another walks off the road, head facing down. Will knock a few times not facing door. Two times he had a hoodie. After no response they will start. In one incident the cops came 8 hours after. Seriously!!!

note: this kickstarter did launch and is on it's way to meet the minimum (50k) goal to get funded: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1544392549/peeple-calle...

Wouldn't it make much more sense to have a device that allows you not only to see who's at your door, but also talk to them directly?

If the only thing you get is to see a picture of the event after-the-fact, I'm not sure that's so useful.

I think it's a terrible under-utilization .. if that's the right word ..

The big downside is that you cannot see who is at your door while you are home. Imagine you are standing in the hall, or behind the door, or near the door and somebody knocks. You don't want to get out your smartphone and unlock it to see who is there, you're right next to the door!

This thing needs a screen.

I agree. A simple fix would be to keep the 'peep hole' and put the camera under it using refraction to separate the images... or 1 smart peep hole and one regular one would work too I guess.

there are trail cams that do this and more...what am i missing?

Marketing.

So if I happen to be standing inside the door when someone knocks, do I then have to run around and find my phone, because this blocks the actual peephole? If so, maybe the inside component should have a small display that powers up after a knock is detected.

You could just answer the door. Sorry to be snarky to you specifically, but this comment section is weirding me out. Maybe I live a sheltered Canadian life but this seems like information overkill. When somebody knocks on your door you should just answer it and not live in a bubble. If you find yourself on the other side of a door with a knock and walk away to find your phone first... I'm worried you have retreated from the normal world into a sheltered modern depression.

ditto.

We've had some home invasion robberies in neighboring parts of town. We won't open the door unless we can see who it is first.

According to the FAQ from their kickstarer:

>We designed Peeple to keep the elegance and functionality of your existing peephole intact. You simply lift the Peeple camera unit off the bracket and look through the peephole. After looking, you can snap the Peeple back into place, no tools needed.

Do they not have any regular doors they can put this on to take their pictures?

How would this work in the case of opening a door from the inside? If a kid opens the door and goes outside, they would only be in the view of the camera briefly.

The article keeps referring to knocking on the door as the method for actuating the device. Not sure if opening/closing the door would produce the same type of trigger.

>In short, Peeple lets you keep a log of people who knock on your door. Chuter thought about this project when his two little boys left the house and played in the street without his consent. Even if your door opens from the inside, Peeple tracks these events. //

It uses an accelerometer.

A isreali high security lock manufacturer already have the idea first. http://www.mul-t-lockusa.com/6689.html

Smart security gadgets like this are very hard to do without a distribution network of locksmith who actually does most door installations.

Hm: wireless, runs on batteries, has a screen so you can still use the peep hole.

But... requires an obvious camera on the other side of the door.

Now that is a good example of internet of things, especially for the vulnerable (ain't we all?). I like the idea that a record is kept of who visited.

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