Final Project: Idea

Working Title: Pictoloc

For the final project, I am interested in creating a new locking device that requires a pictorial key in order for you to unlock the locking mechanism. This idea came from my ongoing research presentation on house apparatus where I will be discussing about ‘Smart Home’.

We normally get home security systems that require us to use a combination of numbers or a passcode in order for us to unlock the door and get into the house. With this idea that I have came up with, all the home owners have to is to draw a picture or a pattern on the drawing pad on their smart phones and have the locking device capture it in its camera. The device will then store that image and lock their homes. The home owners would then have to flash the same image in order to unlock their homes.

The device not only allows home owners to come up with more creative and more complex pictures to have their homes more secure but it also enables them to have the ‘passcode’ or the image refreshed every single time they leave the house. The locking mechanism however, allows you to unlock from the inside of the house without a password. One or more images can be stored in the locking device in the case where there are more than one person in the household. Alternatively, homes that have more than one household member will be able to share the pictures that they have drawn with each other to have one common ‘passcode’ to unlock the locking mechanism.

Additionally, if you have guests or require someone outside of the household to access your home, you could send them the pictorial password.

Advantages:

  1. Eliminates having to remember complicated numerical or alphabetical passwords
  2. Eases the movement getting out and in of the house
  3. Allows more than just one pictorial password
  4. Pictorial password can be shared with the rest of the households
  5. Better security since it is hard for others to break the code
  6. Passwords can be regenerated and refreshed every single time someone leaves the house

Disadvantages:

  1. If you were to leave the home without your smart phone, you would not be able to get into the house