Drawer Lock

[Phillip]

I am doing a custom desk for a client and I had this idea of adding a electromagnetic lock on a drawer. That is easy enough but I thought that maybe I could add a couple of features to bring it to life. 

I will be using this strictly for an iPhone and was looking for a board that would be able to cut the power for 5-10 seconds allowing the drawer to open. I found a product that I thought would work on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLkkeVM0Guo but I am not an electrical engineer.

I was hoping that someone could inform me of which product I could buy to make this happen if it is possible at all. Im sorry I don't have all the specifications for this. It is completely in the design stages. I will do my best to supply any additional information if necessary to help with the answer. 

Thank you, 

[Edvin]

Hello,

The link you provided is a link to our HomeKit SDK. Did you intentionally link to that? The HomeKit SDK requires you to have an MFi account with Apple, and is targeted towards Apple's Smart Home platform. If you already have this, please open a private ticket here on DevZone and express that you want access to the HomeKit SDK. We will have to confirm your MFi account details at that point before we can give you this.

If you didn't intentionally link to it, I suggest you start out by looking at our "normal" SDK, found here. You can of course use this SDK to create an application that you can connect to from an iPhone as well. I suggest you check out the ble_app_blinky example

NB: It doesn't blink like normal blinky examples, but it toggles a LED based on your BLE messages from your phone. Please see the test description in the section "Test using nRF Connect", here. nRF Connect is an Android, iOS and Desktop app.

 

I was hoping that someone could inform me of which product I could buy to make this happen if it is possible at all. Im sorry I don't have all the specifications for this. It is completely in the design stages. I will do my best to supply any additional information if necessary to help with the answer. 

 If you are looking for HW, I would suggest either the nRF52832 DK or the nRF52840 DK. Once you are finished developing your application, you can port it to an nRF52840 dongle, but I do not recommend developing on this one, as it doesn't have an on board debugger.

Best regards,

Edvin

[Phillip]

So since I am not a developer and do not have an MFI account I cannot purchase a board to preform the actions that I am wanting it too? 

Yes I did intentionally link the video of your product back to you because I do not really know what all this is called. These naming schemes are like referring to a type of car by its VIN so I thought it would be helpful. 

I also don't know what HW is. 

I am not trying to program or develop or anything like that I just need a board that can use the NFC inside of a phone to unlock a drawer. I guess I don't understand why I need to go through a vetting process with Apple to be able to do this. 

I talked to one of your, I guess vendors, they were not able to give me a yes or no if this would work. They told me to go back to you and ask questions. 

[Edvin]

Phillip said:

So since I am not a developer and do not have an MFI account I cannot purchase a board to preform the actions that I am wanting it too? 

 You can indeed puchase and experiment with a board (nRF52832 DK/nRF52840 DK), but you need an MFi account to get access to the HomeKit SDK. If you want the normal SDK, you can find that in the link in my previous reply. This doesn't require any account of some kind.

 

Phillip said:

I also don't know what HW is. 

 The HW in the video is the nRF52832 DK. Please see the nRF52832 DK in my previous reply.

 

Phillip said:

I am not trying to program or develop or anything like that I just need a board that can use the NFC inside of a phone to unlock a drawer.

 Remember that our Development Kits (DKs) are not typical "end user products", but intended for development. The pre-programmed application on the DK doesn't do much other than blinking some LEDs, and link you to www.nordicsemi.com when you tap the NFC antenna.

You need to write a program in order to open your drawer when you tap the NFC.

Please note that in the video, the lock is not opened or closed when you tap the NFC. It is used for pairing (connecting) the phone and the nRF DK. The rest is over BLE.