Dog Tracking

[rrockoff]

I have two dogs who spend time in our laundry room when we are not with them. This includes nights when we are in bed. The dogs have a dog door that leads through the laundry room wall to our large backyard. When we are ready to go to bed, it is not always easy to figure out if the dogs are inside the house or outside the house.

Can anyone suggest an inexpensive way to figure out if they are inside or outside using home automation?

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Rod

 

[Rupp]

Wonder if you can hack one of these 2 indicate inside/outside?
http://www.amazon.com/Mate-Electromagnetic-Small-Large-Flap/dp/B0006IC6BW

 

[apostolakisl]

I doubt it will be cost effective, but they make rf id tags that can tell you where something is. They use these to track equipment in hospitals, factories, and other situations where capital equipment gets moved around. Each room has a detector and if the id tag is in the room, it recognizes it and sends the info to a monitoring system.

 

[JonW]

There are dog doors that have RFID tags that work with them and will track if the dogs are inside or outside. I've seen models that support 2 or 4 dogs.

 

[rrockoff]

Thank you for your suggestions. I don't really want to change out the dog door for aesthetic reasons. However, your ideas have helped. I think I can do RFID on one side of the dog door and use this http://www.amazon.com/Swann-Sw351-Wma-Wireless-Mat-Alarm/dp/B003XQPN7S/ref=pd_cp_e_0 on the other side of the dog door. Having something on either side of the dog door should allow me to understand if they are inside or outside.

Rod

 

[electron]

If you could monitor the direction of the door opening (put a reed switch on both sides), you could in theory use some logic to figure out if any dogs are outside.

 

[rrockoff]

If you could monitor the direction of the door opening (put a reed switch on both sides), you could in theory use some logic to figure out if any dogs are outside.

Thanks Dan,

I like your idea. It is inexpensive and addresses the problem.

Rod

 

[JohnWPB]

You could do this with a sensor / switch on the door, to tell when a dog has entered or exited. A motion sensor on both the outside, and inside of the door could be used to then detect the last motion.

Scenario:

Door switch trips, trigger to look for motion. If the motion is from the inside motion sensor, then the dog has entered the laundry room.