Presence or Occupancy Detection

[pete_c]

How does that work with the EOL and such?
 
1 - 12 VDC (+)
2 - Ground
 
3 - Zone #1
A -
B -
4 - Zone #2
A -
B -
 
Here I am using cat5e for the multiswitch sensors.

 

[wkearney99]

The tough part is defining occupancy AND how it should be interpreted. Sure, walking around is easy, but being a couch potato or sitting at a desk is much harder to detect. And then there's the question of just what should or shouldn't be done. Various things would be done quite differently depending on the time of day and the person(s) involved. As in, the wife NOT wanting night time path lighting, but the kids needing it. Lots of other conditionals make it pretty tricky to get it down well enough to be usable to a wide enough audience.

 

[ano]

How does that work with the EOL and such?
 
1 - 12 VDC (+)
2 - Ground
 
3 - Zone #1
A -
B -
4 - Zone #2
A -
B -
 
Here I am using cat5e for the multiswitch sensors.

 
I had to forgo EOL for these zones. They are only motion sensors, so if the communication line fails its not like my home will burn down.

 

[NomisR]

The tough part is defining occupancy AND how it should be interpreted. Sure, walking around is easy, but being a couch potato or sitting at a desk is much harder to detect. And then there's the question of just what should or shouldn't be done. Various things would be done quite differently depending on the time of day and the person(s) involved. As in, the wife NOT wanting night time path lighting, but the kids needing it. Lots of other conditionals make it pretty tricky to get it down well enough to be usable to a wide enough audience.

 
RFID tags in all your wife's clothing so it doesn't activate the lights but activates it for everyone else?  Unless she starts walking around naked of course, then it could be a problem.. or do it with the kids since there's probably less clothes that needs to be tagged.

 

[ver0776]

Well, even if you use one of these hacks, let me tell you what can happen:
 
You spend a year tweaking everything then your girlfriend gets a cat or dog, and your whole system is shot.    Yes, they have some pet immune IR, but then that conflicts with the concept of being extra sensitive for occupancy.    It is just a tough problem that will only be truely solved with new tech.   WiFi Triangulation of your smartwatch, Indoor GPS, long range RFID, etc.    The Kinects off some hope, but you need a couple of them in every room, so to me that is not practicle and they are still really a year out for the new ones...
 
Vaughn

 

[NeverDie]

AngelBlock uses a different technology for their tags and claims they can be "located within a foot anywhere on your property"
3rd paragraph here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1630453569/angelblocks-smart-wireless-building-blocks-for-sma/comments?cursor=6319413#comment-6319412

That would be useful.  Since AngelBlock didn't get funded, is there anything else that's similarly inexpensive that can locate objects that accurately?
 
In an open field outdoors, inexpensive homebrew differential GPS (costing ~$100-$200 in components) has been shown to be that accurate using just two reference points, but in the example I read about (done by an undergraduate) it tended to lose accuracy as you got closer to bulidings and/or other sources of multipath reflections.  
 
Anyhow, I'd love to find an alternative that would work close to home.

 

[drozwood90]

You can make your own?
 
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12751
www.adafruit.com/products/1059
www.parallax.com/catalog/gps
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10710

 

[ano]

GPS typically doesn't work inside your house, and if it did, it doesn't have the accuracy to tell what room your in. Differential GPS can increase accuracy (if DGPS transmitters are nearby, and if GPS is being received) but its accuracy of 15-meters would still make it difficult to know the room your in.
 
Apple (Google and others) are working on indoor location technology (Apple's is called iBeacon) that are designed for indoor location sensing.