RE: moving away from the remote-control paradigm

["Mark Harrison" <Mark.Harrison@xxxxxxx>]

I also have a wife who's remarkably tolerant of quite large amounts of
CAT5 cabling trailing through the house, and seemingly unlimited numbers
of computer/networking/audio components in various stages of
construction/deconstruction all over the place ;-)

I think that the next room to tackle might be the en-suite shower room
(aka MY bathroom.) This has four occupancy modes:

- Using the basin (shave, clean teeth, etc.)
- Using the loo (possibly 2 separate modes, maybe)
- The cleaner coming in and cleaning it
- Having a shower

Probably a simple PIR may cope with the first three, but perhaps some
humidity sensing device, or perhaps a pressure switch on the underside
of the shower tray for the other?

Mark Harrison
Head of Systems, eKingfisher

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-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Gordon [mailto:paul_gordon@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 8 August 2001 17:38
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] moving away from the remote-control paradigm



>Paul,
>
>I don't want to abandon this just because it's complex. Quite the
>opposite - I've got some time, and I've got some money, and I'm
>interested in taking my HA further than "wow - I can dim the
lights
when
>I press 'DVD' on my Pronto."


Glad to hear that, 'cos I agree 150% - this is absolutely an essential
building block to anything that purports to be an "intelligent"
home...
I would dearly love for someone to come up with some detection
technology
and some methodologies for deploying them that would enable occupancy
detection do be done both reliably and economically... Glad to hear that

you're up for the challenge!



>
>On the specifics, I'm more interested in being able to anwer "is
this
>room occupied" rather than "who's in it". I'm guessing
that I could
>answer the question "how many in this room" with 98%
accuracy, though.
>
>Fortunately, the layout of my house makes this relatively
>straightforward in the main rooms, since none have connecting doors to
>each other.
>

You're lucky in that respect then, that should simplify the logic
somewhat.
- Not true for all of us though... :-(


>I was imagining a combination of PIRs and IR beams (set too high for
the
>cats to trigger), but it sounds like occupancy sensors is where I want
>to go.

I agree you definately need to employ at least 2 different detection
technologies for this, - there is NO single detection technology that is

available today, (to the likes of you and me), that has been proven to
be
able to do it reliably... (IMHO)


>

>BTW, as for...
>
> > (simultaneously passing each other in the doorway!)
>
>... you've met me. NO WAY could I pass anyone in a doorway ;-)
>

OK, fair comment! - you've got me on that one!

Paul G.


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