Check Who is at the Lab with the new Check-In page! (no cameras)

[Moheeb Zara]

https://www.heatsynclabs.org/checkin/ or by finding the link under the community drop down on the website. 

Added a little opt-in check-in/check-out feature. Nothing fancy, but you can check-in anonymously or by name and you can specify how long you will be there and if you are hosting. 

Figured it is worth trying out in lieu of anything else, as we used to say in my robotics club "Its only temporary unless it works" 

Completely opt-in and ephemeral. It doesn't track anything about you, it only knows what you type into the name field, all the source is in https://github.com/heatsynclabs/new-hsl/blob/gh-pages/src/components/checkin/CheckIn.vue

[Kirk]

Interesting.  I just signed in as Mickey Mouse from home. :-)  Maybe an improvement could be limiting sign-in to lab IP addresses?

[Kirk]

Just brainstorming - how about an app voluntarily installed on your phone that reports if you are in the lab (based on GPS or Bluetooth proximity)?  Or card holder entry automatically shown on webpage (with card-holder's opt in of course)?

[Antonio Contrisciani]

WE used to have a functionality where you could register your device mac id and then it did all this automatically when you connected to the wifi, but the mac id database got blitzed

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[Moheeb Zara]

I saw that hahaha.  I should probably also add a content filter on it too to prevent abuse, but I would hope everyone behaves responsibly so we can keep this.  :P 

If theres an easy way to check if we are on wifi I can bake it in, like an IP check or something. There is another way that works, but it would require me to run something at the lab with approval. Very small CLASP relay that could run on a pi. 

The mac address thing we had before was cool, but I can see how it felt invasive. 

[David Lang]

if we are going to start tracking who is at the lab, it seems like a proposal
would be needed. at that point, tracking based on phone mac/bluetooth id is a
reasonable thing to consider.

but the proposal would need to say why we want to do this, what options are
there for people to not be tracked (and if we allow people to not be tracked,
what does that do to the justification for having this, wouldn't the people you
most want to track just opt out of tracking??)

David Lang

On Wed, 3 Jun 2026, Moheeb Zara wrote:

> I saw that hahaha. I should probably also add a content filter on it too
> to prevent abuse, but I would hope everyone behaves responsibly so we can
> keep this. :P
>
> If theres an easy way to check if we are on wifi I can bake it in, like an
> IP check or something. There is another way that works, but it would
> require me to run something at the lab with approval. Very small CLASP

> <http://clasp.to> relay that could run on a pi.

>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/heatsynclabs/587de93f-8398-40ab-be9b-6aa55776b9a1n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
>>> .
>>>
>>
>
>

[Moheeb Zara]

This wouldnt be tracking, as it stands now its an opt-in logging that you are at the lab (name optional) and time at the lab in ephemeral state. I specifically don't want to track people, I just want a quick way for people to say "hey I'm here and want you to know I'm here" that day. 

The alternative is a slack+discord bot form that essentially does the same. 

[Kirk]

MAC ID seems ideal.  I don't see a privacy issue.  It will be an opt-in feature - no MAC ID will be displayed and you decide if your name will be displayed.  The very worst case scenario is that you don't use the lab wifi if you object for some reason.