The Core
Why We Are Here => Hardware & Technology => Topic started by: Rupert on January 06, 2016, 05:05:07 PM
-
Parents have got me digging. What with old age and dementia, and the lady next door being violently attacked and Robber last year, I am looking for a solution for vulnerable people.
I started with trying to think of a way to monitor a lack of movement, so i would know if they were not doing their usual routine. My next door neighbour, is terrified of being tied up again, and being left. She would have been there 3 days if she had not got free. It took her 1 1/2 hours to get free of the tape.
So a panic button (PERS) does not do it. If you are unconscious, then you cannot hit a panic button. Dead... likewise. Think of the pets.
There is some amazing bits of kit about. Just Checking co.uk they cost £1000 p.a. Thats a cheap one. if you want remote locking doors its more.
So what am I thinking? a few door activated switches, current or water flow activated switches. perhaps motion sensors. All on battery power, for easy fitting, and bluetoothed or wirelessly talking to a phone, or dumb phone than then sends data to a web server.
I should be able to do it for £50 parts.
Door detectors are on ebay for £2.50. i could probably even get a burglar alarm, that is internet linked, and use that, just removing the alarm, and then getting someone to change the website to show it differently. Even an app to ping if patterns are broken.
Any one any experience of this?
-
>experience
On the fringe, mostly for watching the grandkids within the house and some minor security cam experiments. It's cheap-ish tech now, and getting cheaper --but I think you're going to have $200-300 in it or more. Just a guess. This is definitely a topic worth exploring, IMO.
What's their living arrangement? Free-standing dwelling?
-
Free-standing independent dwellings in each case.
Webcams are out for privacy... 2 of the people I have discussed it with categorically refuse to wear anything, so Jawbone etc are all out. Makes them feel old and monitored.
So i am looking non intrusive. I have found complete alarm systems for $55 on alibaba. If I can hack it somehow to send the info as data (They have a sim slot) to a webserver... I am there....
Instead of ringing a bell, it just needs to send a message.
EG:
zone 1 activated...
zone 2 activated.
where Zone 1 is the fridge door, zone 2 the toilet door, toilet flush or whatever.
Once I have 1 working, I will have about 10 to set up.... so its not a million miles off a new business.
-
>cams out
Well, it'll be cheaper then.
How large is their yard?
How do you want to receive your alerts?
What are you going to exclude (many, many) false-positives?
-
In the backcountry, systems like the SPOT (http://findmespot.com/en/) are becoming pretty popular. This allows people to check in on a pre-established schedule. (You can customize the message.) A missed check-in would cover situations where you were unable to press a panic button, and there is also a "rescue me" message option if getting to a panic button is an option.
The thing I like about the systems that you're talking about is that the "no signal" alert is automatic, and doesn't rely on someone remembering to check in. Also with the SPOT, you pay extra for the rescue beacon, which is more for people who are on the move rather than just hanging around their apartment/house. But the principle of the thing might help in your thinking with how you want to design this.
-
I've bought a few things here lately for monitoring for water leaks, not people or lack of motion, but they might have something
http://www.smarthome.com
-
> the "no signal" alert is automatic
Elders get feisty -even obstructionist- about being monitored. But there are some ways to do it transparently, maybe. Motion detectors, water usage, light switches, etc. BUT Rupert is also worried about home invasion, which would satisfy most of the occupancy tests.
I've been watching Rpi forums for smarthome/security stuff. It's developing, but I've not been watching it closely.
-
I've backed this on kickstarter. It's effectively a load of tiny cameras that you can use as a home monitoring system. They're battery powered and supposedly work wonderfully with no monthly fee etc.
I haven't received mine yet but will report back when I do.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/505428730/blink-wire-free-hd-home-monitoring-and-alert-syste
Another option is to look into Zoneminder. It is a set of Linux packages that use pretty much any type of camera that can be seen by Linux, wireless, wired or otherwise and within that you can build hotspots during certain hours. If activity happens in a "zone" then it fires off an event to do something - In traditional terms that would be an alarm etc.
However, due to the nature of the scripts that come with the application I don't believe it would be hard to reverse the functionality. It may be as easy as adding a literal exclamation mark in a script. Then if NO ACTIVITY occurs in a zone, it can fire off an event - EG a phone call, alarm, etc.
It's got to be worth looking into.
-
Thanks Jason. Blink is a great solution to monitor the house while I'm away. Pre-ordered and I'll also report back when they arrive.
-
Could Amazon Echo be adapted? Voice activation.
http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=13575751011
Ultra low tech late 1960's tech: two old ladies were neighbors in town. They worked out a signal: they put a card of some sort in a window facing each others house every morning to signal they were okay. If the card wasn't up by 7am something was wrong. They checked on each other this way religiously. They were both terrified if something happened they wouldn't be found for days or weeks.
-
Blink is currently hosted.
Blink’s default setting will store all video on our secure servers. Additionally, the Sync Module also features a USB port, and we’ll be issuing a firmware update in Q2 2016 that will allow users the option to send video clips directly to on-board storage. All other Blink functionality will be designed to work with this option, provided the USB stick is in place. You also have the ability, at any time, to download a clip or clips from the server and save to your preferred location.
But that's supposed to change:
Coming Soon: On-board USB storage
The Sync Module includes a USB port that will allow users the option to send video clips directly to on-board storage instead of Blink’s servers. All other Blink functionality will be designed to work with this option, provided the USB stick is in place.
I'm going to order it, too. Good find, Jason.
Now back to Rupert's NO CAM solution
-
>Echo
It doesn't appear to have any contact capabilities outside the Fire ecosystem.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201640670
That said, remember the guy that hacked the Amazon product-ordering pushbutton by looking for it's events fingerprint on the router or somesuch?
-
<added>
I think SMS offers the best notification method overall.
-
I could see Echo turning on a light somewhere outside the house where neighbors can see it, by voice command, that signals something is wrong. Not very high tech but better than nothing.
>SMS
Yes agreed, SMS is very good option.
Rupert, I think you are on to something with motion detectors. If motion is not detected in key rooms like bathroom or kitchen after so many hours the system sends a flag message that needs to be checked out.
-
I think I've found the down and dirty, cheap answer to go with.
Get an old Android phone, - Connect it to Wifi in the house, install the following app - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.motion.detector
Set it in the kitchen (plugged in), likely by the sink or other suitable regularly visited place.
It will detect movement and if you also hook it up to Tasker, you can create a simple task that if no images within certain period, do *thing* such as send emergency SMS
Of course it will work well enough without Tasker but will send images every time something happens and that relies on the reverse implementation and humans (you?) to notice it hasn't sent an email with an image in the last X time period.
-
> motion is not detected in key rooms
Add a couple of strategically-located pushbuttons as 'call boxes' and you have the routine checking and summoning covered, but that doesn't address the home invasion issue.
>the down and dirty
>Tasker
I was thinking about IFTTT, too.
-
Related:
Safe and Sound app and other anti-kidnap apps. Not really relevant to in-home but related to personal safety.
-
Back some time ago, I was brainstorming with a tech/programmer about an 'early warning' security system using a sequential if-then perimeter sensor system. That was on the old X10 transmit-over-house-wiring technology. Still seems like a good idea when powered by, say, an rpi doing some simple logic.
http://www.smarthome.com/sensors-security/occupancy/perimeter-sensors.html
-
I think we may be over complicating it.
We're presuming the person is mobile and looks after themselves, which is the case otherwise they wouldn't be home alone. The issue is they are potentially frail and could be incapacitated for a time, whether it be illness, a fall or worse.
So.... we need to record time periods between actions and if the time period is too long, do something...
As such a simple "Internet button" and IFTT or Zapier etc is all we really need.
The person would need to train themselves that when they go to the kitchen, toilet or whatever place is best for them, they press the button.
We would have a timer running that starts on a button press that does something after a predetermined time. Possibly 4 hours during daytime, possibly 10 hours at night time. (Obviously configurable for the user's normal actions and routine)
When the button is pressed it sends that "ping" to a script via IFTT, Zapier or otherwise and then reset our timer. As long as the button is pressed, it will aways reset and hence no alarm.
Of course we can choose what to do when the timer runs out and it could be an email, an automated phone call (to whoever, playing a recorded mp3 message etc) automated SMS etc etc etc.
None of that would be a big deal to create and the cheapest option would be the Amazon Dash buttons but can easily be done with a Particle or similar - https://www.particle.io/button
N.B. Just found out ...... Amazon seem to be preparing to launch their Dash buttons to be used by devs as basic IOT devices. They're giving them away as swag and have a competition to get great ideas running with them using AWS services.
I personally think this is a brilliant idea for them however I can't get my hands on one. Do any of you have access and we can submit it?
https://aws.amazon.com/iot/button/
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/11/amazon-giving-out-sort-of-hackable-amazon-dash-button/
-
>The person would need to train themselves that when they go to the kitchen, toilet or whatever place is best for them, they press the button.
It just ain't going to happen, Jason. Elders won't even carry their damn phones with them around the house or out in the garden. Well, not until they've fallen off the porch and have to crawl back up the steps. (My brother's mother-in-law).
-
<added>
Just remembered (and my mom's condo neighbor)
-
> Elders won't even carry their damn phones with them around the house or out in the garden
OK, agreed. So we need to have a passive device. A motion detector that does the same thing as mentioned above
Just need to find a programmable camera ThingymajobWhatsitHoojamaflipDibdab that can ping things - on a hunt :)
-
OK ...... Simple and cheap device that has the option to send emails each time the passive infra red is tripped.
Get the emails sent to a dedicated email account. Link that email account to Zapier (as mentioned in an earlier post I did) and then do the action if no email received during certain time periods.
Hence no need to look at the images (although they're there if required) and action only happens when no new movement is detected.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Belkin-Netcam-Detection-Android-Devices/dp/B00BCIRYGM
-
>look at images
While I think that cams will give us the easier solution, mostly because that's the trend and where the marketing volume is, it needs to trigger a non-image event and alert. Even then, it's going to take some convincing to assure your mom that The Facebook Crowd can't see her.
-
The above works on non images. It is purely the passive infra red firing off an action, which happens to be emailing an image (Which we won't look at), and the non action of no emails being received is what we want.
Ideally we simply want an internet connected PIR detector. No need for the camera in all honesty.
-
I'm pretty sure this will be an easy task for an Arduino. I own some, but never done anything with them.
let me look into it, and maybe buy an old fashioned paper book thingy!
-
We have a winner!
$39 Internet connected PIR detector
http://store.wirelesstag.net/products/pir-kumosensor
it needs the Ethernet Tag manager (hub for all these devices) to operate http://store.wirelesstag.net/products/ethernet-tag-manager at $49
and they have loads of other monitoring things. Importantly it allows us to fire off an action if NOTHING happens, and also integrates directly into IFTTT https://ifttt.com/wirelesstag
I'm going to read up some more but this looks good.
-
you Guys are priceless thanks :)
posting inside, where I feel more comfortable.
-
NP Rupert.
BTW I've ordered some of the wirelesstags.net devices. They look amazing and I am sure will be fun to play with.
I am also going to get into some Arduino learning as I do think it could do it. I need a hobby and this is more me, than going to the gym :D
-
That's a pretty amazing system.
For Rupert, there's this
This is a the code for the KumoApp "Send push when no motion is detected for x minute".
http://www.wirelesstag.net/kumoapp
For a vacation rental where people insist on leaving the door open for 1.5 hours while they pack up the car even though it's 25F (-4C)
"When any of the window or door is opened, turn off AC/heat."
I am still waiting for the base unit for my Insteon system, but I probably would have gone for this one if I had seen it first - slightly cheaper, but seems more powerful and the units are smaller.
[update] looks like I'm not left out having bought some Insteon stuff
Custom URL calling allows you to integrate our product with Web service (REST endpoint) enabled home automation systems such as Insteon/ISY by Universal Devices. For example, you can turn on a light when door is opened, or motion is detected. In another example, you can turn off every light at your home when a tag (that may be attached to your key chain) is out of range.
http://store.wirelesstag.net/blogs/news/6538037-production-update-new-features-added
-
*cough* home invasion events *cough*
We just gonna let them tie up Rupert's mom and only respond when she doesn't go to the bathroom or open a door? Worse, what if they DON'T tie her up and just go merrily about the business of satisfying all of our occupancy tests?
-
<added>
What are some events that are passive for the occupant but might act as a trigger? Off the top...
High decibel noise.
Window or door opening between x & y hours
-
On ebay right now trying to put together a kit of parts to make this all happen in an Arduino.
Passive Infra red - No problem
Doors / windows opening - no problem
Decibel count - Not sure at the moment.Decibel Count - no problem
Any more to add to the list?
-
I should add that the wirelesstag products can also work on doors, windows opening with either the reed switch or the motion detector.
As such they can be programmed to do something, IE set off the alarm, ping someone, if it happens outside or normal hours. I'm still trying to find a plug and play microphone sensor for noise/screams etc, but so far Arduino seems to be the way.
-
the problem with loud noise alarms and old people is the TV. I'm still deaf from Christmas.
ok - how about....
pressure pad to identify whether someone is sitting in their favourite seat... if the house is occupied but no one sits in that seat for x period then likely there's an issue (if very clever pressure paid will identify normal sitting or unconcious sitting - if a fitbit can do it I'm sure a pressure pad can, although dodgy if they're prone to dozing)
motion detector in places which will only be rummaged in by intruder like high cupboards or in drawer marked 'valuables'
detect TV or radio NOT playing something distinct they always listen to - normally theres at least one programme which is regular and never missed and would be reliable enough to trugger a phone call at least.
-
Gurtie that's brilliant.
If we use the motion detector thing from wirelesstags and simple put it in their wallet, purse, necklace, bracelet etc. We can ascertain if there is no movement.
Alternatively, put it in a drawer that contains some valuables and instruct the home owner. If ver you get burgled, tell them your cash is kept in drawer X (of course make sure some cash is kept in there) but otherwise never open this drawer on the sideboard. If that drawer is opened then you know there is a code red situation and we can script appropriate action to occur immediately.
(The site shows an example with a fridge opening, showing it is sensitive enough to detect small drawers, doors, cupboards opening etc)
-
Or a PIR in that drawer, wardrobe etc.
-
>I'm still deaf from Christmas.
HHH!
>brilliant
I'm convinced that a lot of what appears to be AI is just excellent combinations of if-then.
I think the high cupboard and/or top shelf of the wardrobe is a good idea. You could put a cam there and tell Mom it's there and she'd never go near it.
>decibel
Some of the older alarm systems had a "noise of glass breaking" sensor.
Bonus: A smoke alarm would trigger it, too.
-
> breaking glass
I was reading this earlier this evening. We're clearly thinking similarly.
http://www.best-microcontroller-projects.com/glass-break-detector.html
-
I should have added that most standard wireless house alarm sensors seem to work on the 433mhz frequency and as there is a receiver for arduino and it costs a couple of bucks, all standard alarm sensors should interface easily.
I appreciate it's not an "off the shelf" answer, but it's the route I am going atm and I feel pretty confident I can make it internet enabled.... Kit will be ordered soon, so we'll see :)
-
Yippeee,
Back in the th3core.... it was probably me... continued here:
http://th3core.com/talk/members-only/from-the-outside-its-my-new-business-idea-%29/ (http://th3core.com/talk/members-only/from-the-outside-its-my-new-business-idea-%29/)
-
> it was probably me
No, we have a server problem. LM has contacted the host, I believe.
-
Rupert, did you see this Hubitat release?
Remote Wellness Check
https://community.hubitat.com/t/release-remote-wellness-check/32038
-
missed it, thanks.