Gatekeep

Problem Space 

Problem Statement  

How can homeowners feel content coming home the moment they arrive in front of their doorstep without sparing a minute to find the right key for the door locks?

Gatekeep locks can create the efficiency of unlocking doors without needing the use of a key. The product comes with an app that has features tailored to the lock. Simply touch your phone against the lock and it will unlock for you. Coming out of the house and locking it by key is old school, so now users are able to walk out without worrying for a minute to ensure the door has been locked. The expression “Home Sweet Home” is spoken in a way of feeling relief on returning home, and no one should ever have the feeling of being locked out of their homes due to forgetting their keys or having the struggle of unlocking their door.

Problem Background  

Today’s culture of millennials and rising gen z are slowly taking over the US market saturated with technology and hands-free devices that efficiently complete tasks all from the touch of one button. With this specific demographic of customers, people are always on the go. Walking out of the house and hustling to commute or just leaving to go on a walk. Oftentimes, people have second thoughts the moment they’re away from their homes like “Did I lock my house?” or “Did I bring my keys with me?”

With Gatekeep, homeowners no longer have to face the constraints of carrying keys. Gatekeep locks are designed to simplify the in/out process from touching your phone against the device to unlocking the door. We want the customer to feel content coming home after a long day of work instead of having to bear another minute in the cold trying to find the right key.

Research Insights

A research survey was conducted with 5 participants to understand the pain points users have encountered:

• Losing or misplacing your home key.
• The safety and security of your home.
• The hassle of carrying keys around when you are away from your home.

Based on the responses from the 5 participants, our main insights are:

• Survey participants are worried if they have locked their doors when they are away from their homes.
• Survey participants in low-income areas are concerned for their safety from being assaulted during the unlocking/locking procedure.
• Survey participants’ needs are having the convenience of opening doors with ease of access and reliability.

Of all the participants that took the survey, all participants had similar answers about making the process of unlocking/locking more efficient. 

Landing on the Solution

Based on our target users’ pain points, we knew we wanted to work on the following features for Gatekeep:

• Ease of access, low cost, and reliability
• App notification to remind users if people are in front of the door 
• An auto-lock or unlock feature based on proximity

Explanation of Solution

We compiled the participants’ needs and concluded that our targeted users’ problem space heavily focuses on having access to security options when away from the house. Users should have the option of controlling the Gatekeep lock when the app notifies that a person is in front of the door. Here are the acceptance criteria:

• The user is able to access Gatekeep lock remotely from home
• Users have the option to grant access to entities in front of the door
• Gatekeep lock can have multiple users
• An administrative user can grant access to various users on adjusted settings
• The user is notified by proximity alarm when the entity is on the doorstep
• Users can grant access to familiar entities to house to drop off items
• Users have access to Gatekeep lock camera to view the front of the door

Future Steps

For the future steps, I plan on bringing Gatekeep to a cross-functional team consisting of a UI/UX designer and software developers and bringing this product to life for consumers with the same problem space.

‍

‍