I’m not sure which would make me happier: hacking an elevator to get to my floor before anyone else, or seeing the other people’s expressions after I did so. Either way, elevators can be notoriously annoying and I’m up for anything that helps beat the system.
There’s an elevator hack that’s been floating around the internet. It seems pretty simple. Almost too simple. After doing a little more research, I found conflicting results. They vary from working, to only working on some elevators, to not working at all. I know you nerdists are super-sleuths, so I thought we could run two experiments:
Experiment 1: How fast can you DEFINITIVELY prove this hack does NOT work for ANY elevator
Experiment 2: Until experiment #1 is proven, let’s all try this today. I’d love to see the reactions of anyone getting floor-jacked!
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I tried it today and it works like a charm. It also made my day! I was all like OMGWTFH4X!
I work on the first floor of an over-crowded building. At 5 when everybody’s rushing out at the same time on all floors, my 1st floor buddies will intentionally intercept elevators on their ay up, because otherwise they’d be full by the time they reach our floor.
So I hopped along for the ride, but positioned myself next to the panel, and as the doors started closing I did my thing (it was really smooth because I can hit both buttons with one hand). The doors stopped and opened again, and a lady next to me stared at me like I had hit the door open button. As the doors closed I noticed the elevator was now going down. Oh yeah.
It was not an act of evil because I saved all of us a few awkward “sorry, full!” and “top floor, why isn’t anyone getting off?” moments. This way we all get home earlier.
I really want to try this out in my buildings, since we have a variety of elevator models. Unfortunately I work in a hospital… so I’ll have to wait until I can get an empty elevator (rare). I never put enough skill points in the “dickface jerkwad” skill tree to be able to hijack the elevator to (example): get me to the cafe for a coffee while making liver transplant candidates wait to get to their appointments on other floors.
I service elevators and have been doing so since 1990 and can tell you it is *possibly* bogus. here’s why:
Emergency personnel in almost every state will have a code required key that fits an emergency service/code blue/independent key switch. They don’t need a get smart code sequence.
Many elevators will use the push buttons as a ‘security code’ after they have gone into a secure mode. Meaning the push buttons act as the keypad to temporarily unlock access too the upper floors when you enter the correct sequence.
That being said, today’s elevators are run with microprocessors and have almost unlimited programming capabilities. The ‘hack’ described is definitely not a stock program, but if someone had the skills, the proprietary communications device and access to the controller, it might be a possibility.
Also, NO it’s not like the movie Speed. Well, mostly not like it. And pushing the hall button multiple times or holding it down does NOT bring the elev faster. Just because it works for you sometimes does not make it so (Number two!). For large banks of elevators, it is handled by a manually programmed traffic schedule. For individual units it just goes to the first button pushed.
Now go take the stairs … They never break.
sure, that works great if you need to go to the 14th floor, but I live on the 16th floor…thanks for nothing
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Works only on Otis elevators, and maintenance administrators are given the option to have this “shortcut” switched off. I originally saw this article a few years ago on I-Hacked
I take an elevator to my job, so I will try this when I am alone, I don’t want to jerk anyone around who is just trying to get to their office.
Even if I did live in a place that actually had elevators somewhere, I don’t know if I could be jerkish enough to actually do this with other people inside.
This would work at the college that used to employ me. Too bad it doesn’t work in my current office building. We should create a list of manufactures & models it works on.
You wouldn’t really need a 2nd person. Just push another button yourself. 🙂
I do this all the time.
It works for me at my schools art building (only 4 floors).
You’d need another person on a different floor to see it the elevator passes them to confirm.