News By Lee Mathews Jan. 13, 2014 12:30 pm
Bluetooth-equipped locks for your front door seem to be a dime a dozen lately, but other smartphone-keyed locks? They’re not quite so common. TEO’s creator has taken to Kickstarter to change all that.
TEO is a padlock, like the old Master locks you trusted to secure your school locker for so many years. The twist, of course, is that you don’t need to remember any numbers or a right-left-right pattern of turns to open it. You just need to remember your phone.
Like Kwikset’s Kevo, Lockitron, or the camera-equipped August, TEO requires a battery. While it lasts for a long time (they’re aiming for a full year), there’s still the possibility that it could go dead at an inopportune moment.
How does the TEO team plan prevent that sort of mishap? First, there’s a ‘fuel gauge’ in the app that tells you how much juice is remaining. Plan B is quite a bit cooler. They’re working on a TEO booster pack, a tiny rechargeable fob that you can place in contact with the lock to coax it open even after a battery has died.
TEO’s shaping up to be quite a bit cheaper than its front door equivalents. A pledge of $79 gets you in on the first run, while $139 scores a pair of padlocks. Why spend 8 times what you would on a combination lock? If you’ve got a piece of equipment or a locker that a whole team needs access to, TEO could be a whole lot more convenient than handing out keys to everyone — or hoping they all remember the right digits.
I know TEO would be a big help at our local rink. It’s awfully easy to forget your combination during the layoff between hockey or curling seasons. As long as you’ve remembered to pocket your phone, TEO will make sure you can get at your equipment.
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TEO is a padlock, like the old Master locks you trusted to secure your school locker for so many years. The twist, of course, is that you don’t need to remember any numbers or a right-left-right pattern of turns to open it. You just need to remember your phone.
Like Kwikset’s Kevo, Lockitron, or the camera-equipped August, TEO requires a battery. While it lasts for a long time (they’re aiming for a full year), there’s still the possibility that it could go dead at an inopportune moment.
How does the TEO team plan prevent that sort of mishap? First, there’s a ‘fuel gauge’ in the app that tells you how much juice is remaining. Plan B is quite a bit cooler. They’re working on a TEO booster pack, a tiny rechargeable fob that you can place in contact with the lock to coax it open even after a battery has died.
TEO’s shaping up to be quite a bit cheaper than its front door equivalents. A pledge of $79 gets you in on the first run, while $139 scores a pair of padlocks. Why spend 8 times what you would on a combination lock? If you’ve got a piece of equipment or a locker that a whole team needs access to, TEO could be a whole lot more convenient than handing out keys to everyone — or hoping they all remember the right digits.
I know TEO would be a big help at our local rink. It’s awfully easy to forget your combination during the layoff between hockey or curling seasons. As long as you’ve remembered to pocket your phone, TEO will make sure you can get at your equipment.
More...
