Gadgetory

hello and welcome to see net slip is the show about DIY tech and how-to I'm Donald Bell and I'm Sharon Vaknin this week we take a look at gadgets to offer you convenience and security at home and we're starting with a keyless entry system that lets you lock and unlock your doors even when you're not at home what if you had the power to be able to lock or unlock your front door from anywhere in the world just using your smartphone well there's a wave of Internet connected smart locks that promise to do exactly that but a lot of them are total replacements for your existing deadbolt I'm gonna show you one that's designed to fit over your existing lock it's called lockitron it's coming out this summer for $179 and it's one of the only smart lock options out there that's great for renters this is not going to damage or replace your existing lock now the first step is to download the lockitron app it's available for both iOS and Android it's gonna walk you through the whole process and on this first screen here you're gonna notice a little thing for checking the compatibility of your lock you take a photo you sent it to the lockitron people to make sure it's gonna work because I swear we had to demo at least five different doors before we found one that would work for this video first register online then add batteries to power it up and finally connect your home Wi-Fi network alright it looks like we're all connected it says the lock is unlocked let's give it a swipe let's see if it can communicate to the lock try the other way great now it's time to get this thing on the door using a screwdriver I'm gonna put this C plate behind my deadbolt and that'll give it a nice base for the lock of trying to snap on you're not to take it all the way off just get it loose enough where I can slide this thing in place it's two little grooves here on the back it's gonna lock right in here and then slide carefully right there now that everything's in place snap on the cover and you're ready to go for one last test the door is locked I want to make sure I can unlock my door from my phone from outside let's give a shot I heard it there we go all right my old lock has now been upgraded and become part of the internet of things I can now lock it and unlock it from my smartphone of course if the internet goes down or the electricity goes out or the zombies start attacking I can always just use my good old fashioned front door key so as cool as that lockitron product is it's looking like about two months before people can actually get their hands on it and that's kind of the nature of Kickstarter projects right you got to keep hope alive yes all right we're going to a quick break but when we get back we'll show you how to turn your old smartphone into something much more useful yes we've got a DIY project that will breathe new life into your smartphone and give you some extra peace of mind welcome back so I'm a big fan of letting things go I don't keep a lot of junk in the house but I do have some old smartphones collecting some dust well in this next segment we're going to show you how to take a few basic materials some affordable ones and turn them into a simple home security camera you can easily spend hundreds of dollars on a complex home security system or you can do it yourself with almost any old cell phone and just a few accessories here's what you'll need an old cell phone today I'll be using iPhones and a way to mount it to the wall I'll be using car mounts as an option you can also use an add-on smartphone lens I'll be using a fisheye a wide-angle and to super fish eye lens and what they'll give me is a wider view of what the camera sees and finally you'll need a power cord for each security camera because those phones will pretty much say on all the time what I'll do is set up three different cameras and you can do this at home or at your office or wherever you want to keep an eye on things I'll set up one at my desk one at a coffee shop and one where I have a view of traffic and weather once these cameras are all set up I'll be able to check in on any of these real-time feeds with my primary phone no matter where I am and there are lots of apps that turn your phone into a security camera but the one I'm using today is I cam that one is only compatible with iOS devices but if you're using Android phones then there's tiny cam the setup is really easy the way I cam works is that there are two apps the first is called I can source and you download it on the devices that you want to use as your security cameras that one's five bucks when you've got it just create a username and password log in hit start and that's it your camera is set up then grab the device you'll be using to monitor in this case I'm using an Android because I cam works with iOS and Android for monitoring download I cam it's also five bucks sign in with the same username and password and voila you'll be able to view one or all of the devices that you've set up as security cameras to set up the three security cameras attached each camera to a mount place a lens on each camera then mount your security cameras in your desired locations finally to ensure a continuous stream disable the auto lock feature now that my three cameras are set up I can launch the app and check in on them in real time I cam also has a feature that record still images whenever it detects motion it doesn't work perfectly but it is good enough if you want to keep an eye on who's coming and going you should also know that the app works best when you have a strong Wi-Fi connection it'll make this whole process a lot smoother so we've featured a lot of products that connect to each other wirelessly but how does it all work Erik Franklin joins us to explain hey guys you know we live in pretty amazing times I mean the fact that you can have one device and then instantly and wirelessly communicate with another that's a world away that's pretty incredible so here's how it all works in order for device to connect to the Internet it needs a way for other devices to be able to find it to know where it is for example when you connect your router to the internet for the first time it's given a unique IP or Internet Protocol address by your internet service provider this allows other devices to be able to find your router in an ocean of billions of other devices so once your router is connected you have a home network and when you connect other devices to that network they're also given their own IP addresses but there are local IP addresses so that means they have to go through your router in order to access the Internet and vice versa so let's take smart locks for example smart locks use embedded Wi-Fi chips to connect to the internet through your router and during the initial setup process for your smart lock your smart phone is giving your smart locks and local IP address so if you're at a party and you can't remember if you've locked your doors or not you take off your smart phone you send a command to lock your doors and it eventually reaches your router and sends it to your smart lock directly locking or unlocking your doors now smart locks are really cool technology and could one day make our lives a lot easier however like any new technology there are some security concerns the reality is that there are hackers out there so proceed with caution knowing that there are some risk involved that's it for this week's show thanks for watching if you have any feedback for us or any ideas you can tweet me at donald and i'm at sharing back we look forward to hearing from you see you soon you