SAN FRANCISCO — Imagine unlocking the front door of a listing with a single tap. As you enter, music begins to play and the lights turn on.
On the wall is a touch-screen display: If you trade in your old home for this one, you learn, you will only have pay $10,000.
Opendoor, an “iBuyer” that uses technology to quickly buy and resell homes, is building this sort of home tour, said Opendoor developer Zain Memon on stage at Hacker Connect.
The showing experience centers on a device called “Raspberry Pi.” Installed in every Opendoor listing, Raspberry Pi communicates with the company’s servers and sensors placed about every home.
One of those sensors is built into Opendoor’s smart locks, which prospective buyers can unlock by tapping a button in Opendoor’s mobile app.
Opendoor’s Raspberry Pi
This “lets anyone walk up to any of our homes and see it on their own time without needing an agent, without needing an appointment, without needing to ask anyone about it,” said Memon.
When a person steps into an Opendoor home, sensors scattered across the home track the visitor’s every move. The data the sensors collect tells Opendoor enough about the visitor’s behavior to eliminate the need to watch the person through cameras, he said.
Other sensors in Opendoor listings that communicate with Raspberry Pi detect things such as water and gas leaks and carbon monoxide.
And “if there’s unusual activity” by a visitor, Opendoor can send a signal to Rasberry Pi that will activate a siren to chase the person out of the home, he said.
Opendoor plans to synchronize Raspberry Pi with a bevy of other devices that can collect or display data in Opendoor homes.
They include smart lights and speakers, as well as touch-screen displays that could show a visitor exactly how much it would cost to trade in their old home — by selling it to Opendoor — in exchange for the home they’re standing in.
