Build your own access control with Please-open.it

October 04, 2018

After 8 years working as an employee (as a developer in the cloud, infrastructure and backend fields) in different companies, I decided this is the right time for me to start my own business. @Loicdesroc will join me on this new project.
We build access control solution for professionnals.
Today, we are lauching an open source and open hardware solution for individual usage : garage door, motorized gate... using your Google account.

About the company

Please-open.it is based in France and we are going to be full time on this project. We want businesses (Hotels, Campings, stations, rent…) to benefit from more flexible solutions and, of course, at a lower price.

Connect every internal data (appointments, planning, special authorizations, subscription…) to an authentication system with a standard protocol. Drive as many devices you want with only one authentication process using your smartphone and a Bluetooth 4.0 connection.

For more informations, visit https://please-open.it or follow us on https://twitter.com/PleaseOpen_It

Hopefully never see this kind of prehistoric devices...

How doest it work ?

Your smartphone is now your remote control device. Your account comes from an OAuth server (in our business offering, we deploy our own servers with specific software). OAuth gives you a token. The token is sent to the access control device using a Bluetooth 4.0 connection. Then, it verifies the token on the server and opens the fence (or door).

For general use, we have built a version using Google's OAuth backend. It is free for all. Now take a look at how you can drive your motorized doors using your Google Account.

Build your own

To build your own you need :

Hardware

The cheapest is (for around 30$) :

Pi Zero W Amazon

Single relay board Amazon

Plug the relay board to GPIO 2, +5V and ground.

Easier (for around 60$) :

Raspberry PI 3 (Amazon ) + 4 relays board (Amazon )

Wiring

In many cases, there is several entries on your door controller. In this example, I've plugged the first relay of the board on SEC.2 (14 and 16). The relay operates like a manual switch. If you already have one, you can plug the relay directly in parallel.

A Somfy door controller.

The relays boards I recommend have 3 slots per relay. It allows open or close standby.

For example, I can connect pin 14 to "COM" and pin 18 to "NO". There is also the possibility to wire pin 15,16 or 17 but on "NC", depending of your opening controller.

Detailled instructions available at https://download.please-open.it/wiring-please-open-it.pdf

Embedded software

Download the image directly from our servers : Raspberry PI Please Open It image

Follow those instructions to flash the image on your SD Card. Do not remove the card from the slot when it is finished. There is an additional configuration step.

We have built a simple web application to help you configure your device. Go to https://public.please-open.it/wizard. Fill-in all the fields, it will then generate at set of config files.

Put all those config files on the SD card, on the volume called "boot".

In the last step, you're invited to add some email addresses. Those Google Accounts will be authorized to open your door. You can add or remove some mail addresses from this list later on.

Detailled instructions available at https://download.please-open.it/flashing.pdf

Mobile application

Download the mobile application, this is an early beta version. It will be available on Google Play and App store in a few weeks.

Install it. If you do not know how to deal with unknown sources on android, follow this tutorial : https://www.androidpit.com/android-for-beginners-what-is-an-apk-file

Just log in with your Google account, then the app search for doors next to you. To try to open the door, just click on its name. This is how it looks like for now :

info : you do not need to log in every time you open the app.

Business or Cloud (hosted) solutions

We can integrate more features for your business : appointments, planning, counter, billing..., based on a similar technology with more features, more flexibility and with a cloud based (hosted) solution running on our servers.

In fact, we provide an oauth2 hosting solution for our product and also for your needs.

see : https://business.please-open-it

or : https://hosted.please-open-it

If you have any questions, you can reach out to us via email at : contact@please-open.it

More to come