Room occupancy detection

["Brian Milton" <bmilton@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I know this is a big area in home automation,  I have used PIR's,
infrared triggers to try detect occupancy.  But have the usual problem
of not being 100% sure if someone is in the room or not and have
lights etc. turn off even when your in the room.

I have been working on an idea and was wondering what people think of
it and would it be of interest.  It will be just a hobby and will most
likely make it open source if it works out.

My idea is to create a indoor positioning system using bluetooth,
mainly thinking of peoples phones.  Your phone could be used to track
what room you are in rather than trying to find out if someone went
into a room or not.  So if your sitting in a room the system will know
you are there, getting rid of the guess work.

Obviously this will require some bluetooth devices placed around the
house to triangulate position.  The main advantages i am doing this
for is to get rid of the guess work, but to also have the automation
more personalised to the specific user/room/appliances/time etc.  Also
will look at using your phone for control.

I am going to be developing this in java as its the main language i
know and most phones will support it.  I also will include the
x10/xAP/xPL API's and maybe more.

Any taughts? Know of a similar system? Or am i wasting my time?

Cheers
Brian


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