Re: My latest cool DIY automation idea

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"IVB" <ivb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

> > I can't think of anything with a lower spousal approval factor than a
> > Robohome brain turning off the lights or sound because someone was
sitting
> > quietly minding their own business.
>
> > The basic problem is most sensors will not see a person sitting quietly
in
> > a
> > chair as motion and they'll turn things off.  It's called the automation
> > "wave" because people then sit there flapping their arms to get whatever
> > the
> > MD shut off to come back on.
>
> All good points, one data point I didn't provide: We have a 4yr old and a
> 2yr old child.

That certainly differs from my environment!

> Literally the only time there's no movement in a room we're
> in is when we're watching TV after they go to bed. My wife jokes that the
> soothing blue Bosch BlueLine motion light is the real Big Brother.

That may make it all the more jarring when you do have quiet time and the
damn lights go out.   I'm still looking for ways to solve the problems that
real "occupancy sensing" entails.  I hope I haven't sounded critical of your
effort.  It's just that you reminded me of me when I first attempted to deal
with automated lighting.  My experiment was doomed from the start because I
was using way too many X-10 PIRs.  It resulted in powerline collisions that
turned off entirely unrelated lamps.  That turned out to be the end of
automatic room lighting for us (moreso for the wife than for me), at least
the kind that was controlled by X-10 PIRs.

> In addition, i'm not looking to turn it off if we won't be in the room for
> only a short period of time.

My wife agrees with you.  She finds that the automated turning on of lights
are most helpful when she's got her hands full and is walking into the
laundry room or the bathroom.  However, if it were up to her, they would
never turn themselves off automatically.  She just sees automatic turnoff as
catering to my bad behavior in not turning off lights when I leave a room.

> Here's the additions to the plan:
> - If a DVD or the TV isn't on, then do those rules.
> - Expand timeout to 15mins
> - Create a "turn God Mode on/off" button that can be accessed via the
inwall
> touchscreens or a PC, perhaps even IR that also disables the rules. That
> way, if there's an activity we're engaging in that is prone to false
> positives, the whole thing can be suspended.

When I wrote about "God mode" I was kidding but now I realize that it's
actually a good idea the way you've described it.  I think my wife will like
it even more.

> Perhaps I'm just naive, but I really do think that would expand accuracy
to
>  >90%, at least in our house. The "God mode on/off" button would tackle
the
> other 10%, and disable it.

You're not being naive.  It's just that battle plans rarely survive contact
with the real enemy.  <g> Anyway, it's all pretty subjective.  I'll bet with
a little fine-tuning you'll get things pretty much to where you want them.
I'll probably do IR beams across each doorway in the next home as one of the
more reliable ways of detecting movement between rooms.  I'd use RFID tags
but until I find one made by Cartier, I don't think I'll be able to convince
my wife to wear one 24/7.

> Then again, I may report back here that it was a colossal failure. Time
will
> tell. Hey, at least this is an option available to me, whereas pre-HA it
was
> not.

I'm working on ideas for multiple sensor "nets" so that there's always some
way to verify the information one sensor sends with that of another.  I
bought a big roll of pressure mat material that I'll be installing on each
side of a door in the new house to hopefully give me information on an
occupant's direction of travel as well as their presence in a room.  That
information, along with PIR and IR beam data, should be able to conclusively
determine whether a room is occupied or not.  There should also be enough
redundancy so that the system can operate reliably if one or more sensors
fails or has failed to "see" the occupant.

Good luck and be sure to let us know how it all works out!

--
Bobby G.