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  1. Home
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  3. A smart home vs an automated home

A smart home vs an automated home

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  • wallyllamaW Offline
    wallyllamaW Offline
    wallyllama
    wrote on last edited by
    #5

    Maybe something like a lytro camera sould be adapted. If the data could be gathered live and processed quickly.....

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    • dbemowskD Offline
      dbemowskD Offline
      dbemowsk
      wrote on last edited by
      #6

      Back when I was with the OSA project, one thing people were using was cell phone data. Not so easy for detecting what rooms people were in, but you could get some idea of who was home or not. I have also heard of people doing cool hacks with Microsoft Kinect cameras. Here is an example of some good motion sensing with kinect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-kZjkNIFxY

      It's an interesting topic which is why I posted it. The key is gathering data. The more data you can gather, the better the chances you can figure out who is home and where they are in the house.

      Vera Plus running UI7 with MySensors, Sonoffs and 1-Wire devices
      Visit my website for more Bits, Bytes and Ramblings from me: http://dan.bemowski.info/

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      • NeverDieN Offline
        NeverDieN Offline
        NeverDie
        Hero Member
        wrote on last edited by
        #7

        I suggest figuring out what would be the easiest way to try it out. If you like it, then maybe you're more inclined to try computer vision or something that's not so easy.

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        • M Offline
          M Offline
          matt shepherd
          wrote on last edited by
          #8

          I know Amazon Echo can now recognize different voices, so it could be listening to see who's home?

          dbemowskD 1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • J Offline
            J Offline
            Justas
            wrote on last edited by
            #9

            Hi, @dbemowsk

            Interesting topic :) Not more than speculation here, just an idea - would be thermal cameras that would capture size and shape of subject. By the way kinect is also could be used for this purpose, and maybe even more easily available. Basically that would allow to easily count persons in the rooms, even in the bed - if you have decided just not to get up for some reason ;) Not sure if kineck could detect motionless person under blanket.

            Another interesting add-on to the solution searching: Xandem alarm system. They claim that can detect and track more than one radio waves interfering object (subject). But they track changes in rf "net", so if someone just sleeps like a baby - not an option.

            And if familiar with machine learning and video processing - I think possibilities becomes very foggy, but endless - some serious data processing and by shape, size etc. you can start recognising not that "if" someone in the room, but "who".

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            • M matt shepherd

              I know Amazon Echo can now recognize different voices, so it could be listening to see who's home?

              dbemowskD Offline
              dbemowskD Offline
              dbemowsk
              wrote on last edited by
              #10

              @matt-shepherd Something I hadn't thought of. Nice idea. I do have an Amazon Echo in my living room. My only question on that is have they figured out a way to sparate 2 Amazon devices like an Echo in one room and a Dot in another room to know what room a sound came from? Last I checked, that was not possible.

              I was looking into it a bit for other automation stuff like turning on a light in a room. For example, when I am in the living room and I say "turn the overhead light on", it turns on the living room overhead light. When I go into the office, where now I am being heard by the Dot, and I say the same phrase, it should turn the office overhead light on. From the reading that I have done, you can't use them that way, but it should be possible somehow.

              Vera Plus running UI7 with MySensors, Sonoffs and 1-Wire devices
              Visit my website for more Bits, Bytes and Ramblings from me: http://dan.bemowski.info/

              sam9sS 1 Reply Last reply
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              • dbemowskD Offline
                dbemowskD Offline
                dbemowsk
                wrote on last edited by
                #11

                Just read this.
                https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/26/15876630/amazon-echo-alexa-room-intercom-house-calls-devices-dot-show
                Sounds like Amazon actually IS looking to be able to define rooms. I could only hope that somewhere down the road that they add some of that data to the Alexa app for my Vera Plus. I could then script things by room.

                Vera Plus running UI7 with MySensors, Sonoffs and 1-Wire devices
                Visit my website for more Bits, Bytes and Ramblings from me: http://dan.bemowski.info/

                M 1 Reply Last reply
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                • gohanG Offline
                  gohanG Offline
                  gohan
                  Mod
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #12

                  In the latest video of Andreas Spiess he is talking about presence detection with an esp32 by sniffing the wifi traffic. There are a number of commercial products that 2 or more can be installed to triangulate signals from smartphones wifi and Bluetooth (I had to install 3 of those in a Mercedes dealership, they were from Netgear if I remember well): basically there is a Master one and they talk to each other on their own separate wifi network; I think it is kind of a mesh network, because they can relay data of distant nodes to the Master device. Of course once installed they need to be calibrated by me standing in a known position with my smartphone in my hands and turning around 90° each time I was told to.
                  I would have liked too to have the home automation system to be aware of people in the house by the means of BT devices, but it is still in the to do list. As said before the data analysis is going to be tricky but it going to be the main subject of the following years, as more and more AI and machine learning cloud services are popping up (I did a quick peek on the IBM site and I got scared by the amount of services that are available and I will never be able to use, as my programming skills are not really the best)

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                  • dbemowskD dbemowsk

                    Just read this.
                    https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/26/15876630/amazon-echo-alexa-room-intercom-house-calls-devices-dot-show
                    Sounds like Amazon actually IS looking to be able to define rooms. I could only hope that somewhere down the road that they add some of that data to the Alexa app for my Vera Plus. I could then script things by room.

                    M Offline
                    M Offline
                    matt shepherd
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #13

                    @dbemowsk
                    I use mine with Openhab as they have a skill, and im waiting for the new ‘Routines’ to be released, I think Amazon are raising their game and along with the new Routines https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/27/16375050/alexa-routines-echo-amazon-2017 and now that it can recognise different voices https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/10/11/16460120/amazon-echo-multi-user-voice-new-feature it could help my house turn from Automated to Smart very soon.

                    dbemowskD 1 Reply Last reply
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                    • M matt shepherd

                      @dbemowsk
                      I use mine with Openhab as they have a skill, and im waiting for the new ‘Routines’ to be released, I think Amazon are raising their game and along with the new Routines https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/27/16375050/alexa-routines-echo-amazon-2017 and now that it can recognise different voices https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/10/11/16460120/amazon-echo-multi-user-voice-new-feature it could help my house turn from Automated to Smart very soon.

                      dbemowskD Offline
                      dbemowskD Offline
                      dbemowsk
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #14

                      @matt-shepherd If they can then get multi tiered location setup down, that would be awesome. By multi tiered location setup I mean being able to define say 2 houses, maybe a main home and a vacation home, and then have devices that have a defined parent, such as main home or vacation home. That would allow for say having two devices named living room light.

                      My only thought on that for occupancy sensing would be, what if you walked into the room and didn't say anything? None the less, it gets back to what I said about data, the more you have, the more informed your scripting decisions can be. One other thing, if you used multiple echos or dots, you would have to make sure that more than one device doesn't hear the command.

                      Vera Plus running UI7 with MySensors, Sonoffs and 1-Wire devices
                      Visit my website for more Bits, Bytes and Ramblings from me: http://dan.bemowski.info/

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                      • NeverDieN Offline
                        NeverDieN Offline
                        NeverDie
                        Hero Member
                        wrote on last edited by NeverDie
                        #15

                        The question may turn out to be whether people are willing to accept less than perfect performance in exchange for occasionally more capability (when it works). I think Z-wave and x-10 were good examples (of unreliability) showing that's not what people want. People seem to prefer less capability, but have it work 100% of the time the way it's supposed to. At the very least, WAF is low on unreliable things.

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                        • wallyllamaW Offline
                          wallyllamaW Offline
                          wallyllama
                          wrote on last edited by wallyllama
                          #16

                          http://people.csail.mit.edu/fadel/wivi/

                          Ok this is the one I was looking for

                          http://witrack.csail.mit.edu/witrack2-paper.pdf

                          dbemowskD 1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • wallyllamaW wallyllama

                            http://people.csail.mit.edu/fadel/wivi/

                            Ok this is the one I was looking for

                            http://witrack.csail.mit.edu/witrack2-paper.pdf

                            dbemowskD Offline
                            dbemowskD Offline
                            dbemowsk
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #17

                            @wallyllama interesting.

                            Vera Plus running UI7 with MySensors, Sonoffs and 1-Wire devices
                            Visit my website for more Bits, Bytes and Ramblings from me: http://dan.bemowski.info/

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                            • dbemowskD Offline
                              dbemowskD Offline
                              dbemowsk
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #18

                              This sounds like a very do-able basic solution to counting the number of people in a room.
                              http://cocoontech.com/forums/topic/18483-room-occupancy-counters-need-help/
                              As the guy asks, how do you make it look nice. Would there be another way of doing the two beams? Small laser pointer modules perhaps?

                              If you put these on every doorway in your house, you could get the logic down to where it would know a fairly exact count of how many people are in a room at any given time.

                              Vera Plus running UI7 with MySensors, Sonoffs and 1-Wire devices
                              Visit my website for more Bits, Bytes and Ramblings from me: http://dan.bemowski.info/

                              wallyllamaW 1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • dbemowskD dbemowsk

                                This sounds like a very do-able basic solution to counting the number of people in a room.
                                http://cocoontech.com/forums/topic/18483-room-occupancy-counters-need-help/
                                As the guy asks, how do you make it look nice. Would there be another way of doing the two beams? Small laser pointer modules perhaps?

                                If you put these on every doorway in your house, you could get the logic down to where it would know a fairly exact count of how many people are in a room at any given time.

                                wallyllamaW Offline
                                wallyllamaW Offline
                                wallyllama
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #19

                                @dbemowsk search "see through walls with wifi". I suspect it could be mounted to the wall and covered with art or something transparent at 10ghz, or with loss of sensitivity in the wall itself.

                                dbemowskD 1 Reply Last reply
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                                • wallyllamaW wallyllama

                                  @dbemowsk search "see through walls with wifi". I suspect it could be mounted to the wall and covered with art or something transparent at 10ghz, or with loss of sensitivity in the wall itself.

                                  dbemowskD Offline
                                  dbemowskD Offline
                                  dbemowsk
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #20

                                  @wallyllama Though I see future potential in this, I don't see it as anything that can be put into operation easily at this stage.

                                  Vera Plus running UI7 with MySensors, Sonoffs and 1-Wire devices
                                  Visit my website for more Bits, Bytes and Ramblings from me: http://dan.bemowski.info/

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                                  • NeverDieN Offline
                                    NeverDieN Offline
                                    NeverDie
                                    Hero Member
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #21

                                    https://www.oshpark.com/shared_projects/fAVBnmO7

                                    wallyllamaW 1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • NeverDieN NeverDie

                                      https://www.oshpark.com/shared_projects/fAVBnmO7

                                      wallyllamaW Offline
                                      wallyllamaW Offline
                                      wallyllama
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #22

                                      @NeverDie nice! Sparkfun has a breakout that is 20% cheaper than just the omron sensor. This is is getting closer to my price range, the radar modules are cheap and might be fun, but this would likely yield a working solution sooner.

                                      NeverDieN 1 Reply Last reply
                                      1
                                      • wallyllamaW wallyllama

                                        @NeverDie nice! Sparkfun has a breakout that is 20% cheaper than just the omron sensor. This is is getting closer to my price range, the radar modules are cheap and might be fun, but this would likely yield a working solution sooner.

                                        NeverDieN Offline
                                        NeverDieN Offline
                                        NeverDie
                                        Hero Member
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #23

                                        @wallyllama said in A smart home vs an automated home:

                                        @NeverDie nice! Sparkfun has a breakout that is 20% cheaper than just the omron sensor. This is is getting closer to my price range, the radar modules are cheap and might be fun, but this would likely yield a working solution sooner.

                                        Is this the one you found? https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14289

                                        wallyllamaW 1 Reply Last reply
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                                        • wallyllamaW Offline
                                          wallyllamaW Offline
                                          wallyllama
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #24

                                          Once a method of sensing people is selected/found, then mySenors can be used as the transport layer. This leads to the question of the actual "smarts". The various mysensors supported packages seem to track state, allow control, and have scenes, which are good data and tools for the smarts to work on, but dont seem to be smart themselves. Am I overlooking something?

                                          Commercial products use the 'cloud' to gather a lot of data from local devices, and create an AI of sorts that local devices then query for the appropriate response to specifuc conditions. I'm not interested in sending all my data to the cloud, so Im interested in completely local solutions.

                                          Again this doesn't currently exist(that I know of), but many pieces do. Some are just pieces (hadoop for storing data e,g), some are partway there (mycroft ai e.g.), some have large backers (movidius ai accelerator). Some assembly required.

                                          Are there more complete solutions that I may not know of?
                                          What goals do others have?

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