First of all I want to thank everyone the constructive comments and the civilized tone in this thread. Lets keep it nice and friendly.
This is just a theoretical system but perhaps it can lead to something practical in the future, so do not hold your breath that your condo will be able to order one tomorrow.
So far we discussed a lot of possible issues and risks but I think no fatal flaw was found in the logic (yet).
It is worst case scenario, so it plays like the lady wins in court at the end, 'cause the judge says the alarm system endangered life and property. The pregnant lady wins, condo corp. has to pay $300,000 in punitive damages.
It is a scenario that certainly must be dealt with. Either by a technical solution or in a legal agreement between the condo corp and the supplier of this system.
My worst case scenario is actually way more horrific:
- Thief panics and shots the a security guard
- Thief hides somewhere in the garage an takes the pregnant lawyer lady as a hostage while shooting madly in a massive violent crime.
- Police evacuates entire building as a precaution.
- Police storms the garage: multiple casualties and massive property damage occurs.
This would be a huge liability with million dollar lawsuits all over the place. An incident like this would make all owners mad like hell and lower the property values in the building. Not a good thing.
This is exactly the reason why we do not want to catch the bad guys just block the vehicle. It might even sound counter intuitive but in a way the system almost must facilitate the escape of the criminals from the property so there is no chance for any violence. One solution would be is to partially open the garage door to about 2 feet so the bad guys can get out but the vehicles cannot.
Worst case also includes the cops showing up to your house and charging you, codemonk, with a criminal offense - forcible confinement. Then what happens?
I think we are lucky with regards of this. It is the condo corp. that might be sued, however Ontario just recently updated the laws in light of an incident on Parliment street when a shopkeeper shot a thief. Obviously it must be checked with a lawyer but a citizen arrest in a private property is perfectly fine. If you decide to
read Bill C-26 which is in effect since 2012 you will find that as a citizen you have a surprising amount of right to protect yourself or your property.
If the door only opens if a fob is not present, then any thief who has an RF jammer to block anti-theft GPS transponders will also be able to block the Bluetooth signal. Wouldn't it be better if the fob *had* to be present to open the door? Then people can put it on their keychain. It's a tougher battle with the condo corporation, but this fob could then also be used to unlock doors and enable elevators. People wouldn't need a traditional key when they have a Bluetooth key.
We discussed this earlier: see the very first post with control fob and GPS signal strength. As a matter of fact any attempt for jamming is used agains the theifs because signal loss sets an alarm to the guard and locks the garage door.
It sounds a bit overcomplicated, most people are too lazy to actually remove a device from they're vehicle before they drive; I could see this being a potential problem.
We discussed this earlier , we can make it work with 1 fob or 2 fobs configurations. The 1 fob setup would be perfect for a snowbird's car parked for 3 months while the 2 fob configuration - which is a bit more expensive but it is totally idiot proof - would be great for the senile motorcycle and bicycle owners.
Bingo .... Unless you have a board of motorcycle enthusiasts, I cannot see how this would be even brought to resident's vote and then you still need good majority to pass and implement.
It's an uphill battle in a market where motorcyclists don't mean much, simply the condos don't need you and your motorcycle, they simply don't care at this point. Pool and quality and temperature of water is what will raise an absolute hell, not that a bike or two were stolen .... just my 0.02.
You are right. Selling the first 100 systems would be next to impossible but do not forget that this system is not just for motorcycles. The 3 target groups that would support something like this would be:
- Motorcycle owners.
- Snowbirds (Leaving the car in the garage for 3+ months.)
- Bicycle owners.
we also discussed that it is a revenue generator for the condo corp which might be a big plus for the board.
Nothing is fail-proof. You maybe able to get it to Six Sigma level, but never 100%.
I fully agree, we can make this system more and more reliable but it is never going to be 100% fool proof nor will it prevent theft 100% of the time. What this system does is that it makes the bad guys life much more difficult and crime lot less rewarding.
On a similar note what happens today when your old dumb garage door opener battery dies and you get stuck in front of the condo garage door (either inside or outside ) ? Is this a failure or a feature ?
