en_about
Zuul AC (Zuul Access Control, named by "Ghostbusters: zuul, the Gate Keeper") is a simple, quick and especially inexpensive solution for door key sharing via messenger.
This works practically for all doors, where different several people need to get in and out: Gyms, club houses etc. but also e.g. Apartment buildings.
Who does not know this situation?
In the club house Mike Miller wants to celebrate his birthday on the weekend and so he now needs some keys for the delivery service before and best also some more keys for his guests to not let the door open the whole evening.
In other cases people wants some keys, but use them only all three months and some day they do never show up again. On monday the craftsmen will need get into the gym, and it would be good if the parcel service would have permanent access to the storage room.
All this was a expensive fun with permanent tracking of the lend or lost keys.
With Zuul-AC this is all just a finger snip, because
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the keys are only just virtual and so available in an unlimited number, they don't cost money and can't get lost
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The user do not need another dedicated app or user account, he only need the Messenger Telegram on his mobile
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you can have multiple keys on your mobile, no matter from who. Even if all these keys belongs to all different institutions who do not belong together at all, all keys work seamless in the same way.
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you can always lend your futher, so
- at the birthday party in the club house the host gets a key and spread that by himself to the delivery service and his guests
- the housekeeper in an apartment building give a key to each tenant, who then can forward the key to his guests or to grandmas nursing service
- the local parcel station gets a key and spreads it internally to the drivers
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this all is possible, because
- you can always fetch back all the keys you have lend
- when returning a key, in that moment all keys lend further from that particular key will disappear instandly. So if you fetch back the key from the host of the club house party, all guests and the delivery service will loose their keys
- you can also always hand back any key you have got. In that moment also all the keys disappear which you've lend further by yourself
With that you've anything you need to lend and fetch back keys.
But how does this work in practice?
Each door is represend inside Telegram Messenger as a contact, as here the contact ''Köhlers Tür''
As soon as you write something to that pseudo contact, Zuul is answering with a menu which guides you through all functions.
As seen here, there are not much menu levels.
Zuul itself is 'multi-lingual' and supports each language for which a language file is available.
If somebody shares a key, he can forward the door contact via Telegram at the same time. The information can also be placed outside the door as QRCode, as seen here for my demo door:
Any permitted visitor can scan that code with his mobile and gets instandly an temporary one-time QRCode to open the door.
All access data of the doors are stored inside the door software, they are not located in the internet. The chat communication goes over the Telegram servers so it might be monitored there.
If an attacker takes over the Telegram account (e.g. by stealing the mobile) he has access to the stored keys.
But that's also the case if he would steal a real key ring. In both cases he needs to know where to find the door for these keys.
Now it becomes technical: Zuul is not a standalone product, it works as an Add-On instead, which can be added to existing Smart-Home systems.
It's a python program which communicates via websocket with the smart home application, so it should be compatible with the major open source solutions (OpenHab, NodeRed, FHEM, HomeAssistant, IOBroker etc.)
Basically nothing, but...
Just with software only you cannot open a door, so you'll need at least a door opener, a tiny computer and a qr code reader. That gives roughly the following shopping list:
| Device | Price (est.) | Where is the problem? |
|---|---|---|
| Raspberry Pi | 50€ | |
| QR-Reader | 15€ | Only available in china, no finished software available yet, no off-the-shelf housing available |
| WebCam | 17€ | alternative to the QR-Code Reader, if the Raspberry Pi is close enough to the door and the webcam can look though the door window |
| Shelly 1 | 12,50€ | Good, but hard to get |
| Door opener | 18€ | |
| DC- Power source f. door opener | 15€ |