When someone rings your doorbell, they are instantly photographed and the image is attached to an email and sent to you, at work or wherever you may be.
A reply email could then be sent to your doorbell containing any one of a number of commands, but I imagine the most useful would be an ‘unlock door’ command, although ‘squirt water’ could be quite good fun as well.
The practical applications of this would be that you could let plumbers, electricians or delivery people into your house on a pre-arranged day/time without having to stay home from work. If a member of your family locked themselves out it would be handy too. Or if you’re away on holiday and one of your children is having a party you could see everyone who was arriving at your house. It could also simply be used to check up on people to see if they called when they said they did, or to catch burglars who, I imagine would ring the door before attempting to break in.
As technology advances there could probably be the facility to include facial recognition and WAP notification to your mobile phone.-- stupop, Dec 18 2001 Watchtower http://www.watchtower.orgJ.W. version [stupop, Dec 19 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004] Watchtower http://www.reasonto...cks/watchtower.htmlJimi / Bob version [stupop, Dec 19 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004] IcePick http://www.icepick.com/doorbell.shtmlBaked - doorbell takes photos and posts to web [admin note: This link is defunct. The IcePick project has ended.] [goodie, Dec 20 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004] Door bell calls cellphone http://www.dailymai...l?ito=feeds-newsxml [theircompetitor, Jun 05 2011] why don't you just have webcams monitoring your house all the time? that way you could pre-empt doorbellringing, and squirt them with water as the reach for the bell, or as if pressing it causes the squirting. That I would find funny. I think there might be a small problem with timing though.-- lewisgirl, Dec 18 2001 There are already systems that can send a call to your mobile when your front doorbell rings so, if you set up a webcam, as lewisgirl suggests, you can just dial up your webpage (using pogo or somesuch) and see who's there. So that part of the idea is bakeable (and probably baked already in Finland). The remote door activation shouldn't be a problem either, just a matter of sending a return signal, I would have thought.-- DrBob, Dec 18 2001 or your partner, if it bothers you that much. Speak to po and thumbwax, I think.-- lewisgirl, Dec 18 2001 all of the above?-- lewisgirl, Dec 18 2001 I've always wondered whether Jehovah's Witnesses were for the prosecution or the defence, and what exactly it was that Jehovah actually _did_.-- cp, Dec 18 2001 I'm amazed at how quickly a Jehovah's Witness conversation has come about from a doorbell idea.-- stupop, Dec 18 2001 UB, that would be the Jimmi Hendrix doorbell, yes?-- DrBob, Dec 18 2001 have a friend/mentor at my parents' church, who is a little on the eccentric side (if brilliant); a pair of Jehovah's Witness-types knocked on his door once, he asked them in, gave them coffee and spent the afternoon trying to convert them.
*grin* evil of him.. but fun...
er, nothing to say on-topic i'm afraid *blink* but i like the idea-- Urania, Dec 18 2001 [Dr Bob], [UB] - How about a "watchtower" at the end of your driveway in the form of sensors that can detect Jehovah's witnesses (as well as horsemen and barefoot servants) and issues a warning noise that sounds like howling wind. You could then set your growling wildcat on them to chase them away.-- stupop, Dec 19 2001 //they're still getting over bad relationships//<Rant>I'm done getting over a bad relationship, have been for a decade. I just want my daughter unbrainwashed, my stuff, my money - ($100,000 + and counting) down the toilet, a lawnmower with a rusty blade, and a splinter-free cool-handled pitchfork with rusty tines to poke the opportunistic greedy proof-there-is-no-god beeyatch with just for the halibut. That's all.</Rant>-- thumbwax, Dec 19 2001 oh lordy. can you say the word 'bitter'?-- lewisgirl, Dec 19 2001 Ring Ring! +-- nomadic_wonderer, Feb 01 2004 good idea [dr bob] of adding mobile tech. too. Pics sent to ur pic phone of people ringing your doorbell. Very bakeable, very practical. We have a winner!!-- etherman, May 18 2004 Dammit! - I'm actually looking for some way to make a wireless doorbell repeater so we can hear the doorbell when we're at the end of our garden, and a Google search just led me back here.-- hippo, Oct 24 2008 Another validation of the Halfbakery, the only website worth checking on a regular basis.
Probably patentable. There are obviously remote security cameras that will send transmissions when triggered but the doorbell being the trigger might not have been though of yet. Easy enough to do a search.
A $40 unit you hook up to your home LAN would be a really cool gadget. I'd buy one.
Really good idea.-- doctorremulac3, Jun 05 2011 Except for the picture bit, this is pretty much baked in some apartment buildings. My brother's old place in California had the door buzzers connected to a phone line instead of terminals in each unit. When somebody pushed the button for your unit, it would place a phone call. Most people had gave the apartment an landline to program into it, he gave them his cellphone. On more than one occasion, he let the UPS guy into the building from out of state.-- In No Particular Order, Jun 06 2011 Well, yea, but the picture is the whole idea. Somebody rings your doorbell, you get their picture as apposed to somebody saying they're the UPS guy over the phone. Damned clever. It's a remote peephole.-- doctorremulac3, Jun 06 2011 random, halfbakery