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| DoorBot gives buyers a door device and a smartphone/tablet app to let them control who gets in their house from wherever they please. (Photo: Edison Junior) |
Homeowners can soon answer the door and even unlock it for visitors simply by checking their smartphone or tablet. A "DoorBot" designed for answering the door remotely has successfully hit its $250,000 funding goal on a new crowd-funding website.
The $189 invention, from the company Edison Junior, allows people to see and communicate with visitors without being at home — a feature that has attracted $282,000 in funding so far. A special $339 bundle that includes a separate "Lockitron" device, from the company Apigy, adds the ability to remotely unlock the door and share virtual keys with friends and family through a downloadable DoorBot app for smartphones and tablets.
"Mechanically, Lockitron is a very simple device in that it just turns the lock, but its brains are actually pretty powerful in that it can communicate locally with your phone as well as over the Web," said Cameron Robertson, a co-founder of Apigy.
The announcement of DoorBot's funding success on Christie Street — a new rival of Kickstarter focused on hardware — came on January 24th. But Robertson previously spoke with TechNewsDaily during the Consumer Electronics Showcase in Las Vegas in January.
Lockitron and DoorBot offer homeowners a new level of control over access to their home from their mobile devices, Robertson explained. Landlords can issue virtual keys to tenants. A homeowner at work could remotely unlock the door after talking with the deliveryman outside, or simply take his or her smartphone on a jog and leave the keys at home.
Best yet...if your DoorBot is stolen, they will replace it for free!! How's that for customer service.
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