Home Security System
Code, fingerprint, face and voice. Built after someone tried to break in.
Someone tried to break in.
The cameras caught it: people walking into the backyard, opening the storage boxes and leaving with parts. Locks, and cameras that only send a notification, were not a real answer. This needed something that identifies, documents and alerts.
A vault door from a movie, for real.
Remember the lair in The Incredibles, where you scan your eyes and your fingerprint and say a voice password before the door opens? That was the brief: several layers, each one checking a different part of you.
Measured, modelled, printed.
Every part was measured, laid out in CAD and 3D printed into one panel: keypad, fingerprint scanner, camera, microphone, status lights, an arm and disarm button and a screen. The enclosure took four failed prints to get right.
Fifty hours of wiring.
Each sensor got its own labelled, soldered and wrapped cable in a hand-built harness, plus a custom power supply for everything that draws current. The panel mounts on the wall, with every wire passed through it to the lock motor on the other side.
Written from scratch, with face detection.
Enter the code, scan a finger, look at the camera, say the passphrase. The camera finds your face, maps it into a pattern of points, snaps a picture to compare against known faces and even estimates your mood. Only when every step passes does the lock open.
High-level tech on a low budget.
A working proof of concept at the door: multi-factor access, fingerprint and face checks, a picture of everyone who tries, built from hobby parts in two and a half weeks.
See it built.
Straight from the bench.
The details.
Checks
- Keypad
- PIN code
- Fingerprint
- Optical scanner, pattern match
- Camera
- Face detection with landmark points and a mood estimate, snapshot for comparison
- Microphone
- Spoken passphrase
- Button
- Arm and disarm
Feedback and output
- Screen
- Status display
- Lights
- Green, yellow and red
- Lock
- Motor-driven
Build
- Enclosure
- Designed in CAD, 3D printed
- Wiring
- Hand-built harness, about 50 hours
- Power
- Custom power supply
- Software
- Written from scratch
- Install
- Wall-mounted, wired through the wall
Status
- Built
- April 2021
- Now
- Out of commission. It can be built again.
Want one built again?
We answer every message, usually within a day.