There’s An Engineer In Germany I’d Like A Word With; Tale of a Crumbling Volkswagen Lock

In common with quite a few in the hardware hacking community, I have a fondness for older vehicles. My “modern” ride is an older vehicle by today’s standards, a Volkswagen Polo 6N made in the late 1990s. It’s by my estimation a Good Car, having transported me reliably back and …read more

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Printed Door Handle Turns Key With a Servo

[Madalin Valceleanu] had a somewhat unique problem. He wanted to make his front door a bit “smarter”, but none of the IoT door locks he found were compatible with the style of reinforced door he had. So he set out to design and 3D print his own Internet-controlled door handle. …read more

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A Robust ESP8266 RFID Access Control System

By now we’ve seen plenty of projects that use an ESP8266 as a form of rudimentary access control: tap a button on your smartphone, and the door to your apartment unlocks. With the power and flexibility of the ESP, it’s a very easy project to pull off with minimal additional …read more

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Photon Door Lock Swaps Keys for a POST Request

At this point we’re all well aware of the fact that there is some inherent danger involved when bringing “things” onto the Internet. Nobody wants to come home to a smoldering pile of ruble because their Internet connected toaster oven decided to get stuck on “Hades.” But even with the risks, occasionally we see projects that prove at least some intrepid hackers are managing to navigate the Internet of Things to solve real-world problems.

[Daniel Andrade] writes in to tell us about the Internet controlled entry system he’s setup at his new apartment, and while we imagine it’s not for …read more

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Pepper Mill Locks Your Door

Pepper! If you’ve ever tried to grind it, you’ve probably noticed it takes a bit of elbow grease. It’s actually possible to source electric pepper mills to grind it for you, in fact. It just so happens that [MarioM66] had one to hand, and a door lock that needed automating.

Seeing as grinding pepper requires at least as much torque as turning an average key in an average lock, the electric pepper mill makes perfect sense to use as a lock actuator. This build actually uses the electric pepper mill to directly turn the key in the lock, courtesy of …read more

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Simple RFID Door Lock System

Group entry hacks are a favorite for hacker social groups. Why use old fashioned keys when you can use newfangled electronic keys? If you are looking to build a simple RFID-based security system to secure your important stuff, this project from Resin.io is a good place to start. In it, [Joe Roberts] outlines the process of building a simple RFID-triggered mechanism for their office door.

It’s a pretty simple setup that is composed of an RFID reader, a Rasperry Pi and a Neopixel ring. When someone places an RFID card against the reader hidden behind a poster by their front …read more

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Add Bluetooth to a Cheap Electronic Lock

[James] works from home. His office is filled with objects that can be described with adjectives such as, “expensive,” and, “breakable.” His home, however, is filled with professional object-breakers known as children. To keep these two worlds from colliding, he installed a keypad lock on his office door. The potential side-effect of accidentally training his children to be master safe-crackers aside, the system seems to work so far.

However, being a hacker, the tedium of entering a passcode soon grew too heavy for him. Refusing to be a techno-peasant, he set out to improve his lock. The first step was …read more

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