What would you pay for flawless occupancy detection?

[Quixote_1]

Substitute "HAI" for "Elk" in your question, and pretend I hadn't bought the Elk or remained blissfully unaware of its deficiency, and I'd say I'd have paid $150-$185/ea for maybe 2-3, or $45-50/ea for 18-20. If over $50/ea, my thought/buying process when I recently built my house would have been that I like the idea of the accuracy & multiple-occupant tracking, but to truly utilize the system to its fullest and track the number of occupants, I'd have to buy so many of the sensors (and pay corresponding wiring installation charges) for coverage that it would quickly move into the realm of "way too much money for a fun but totally unnecessary gadget."

I would have paid the $150-185 for 2-3 to serve as "critical sensors", as it would be worth the premium over the "regular" detectors I bought if these sensors had better accuracy plus wouldn't lose track of someone who stops moving for a while (say, while they are sitting on a couch staring at a tv). If the price per unit was low (~$45ea) then I might have sprung for a high quantity to get the coverage I would need to support occupant tracking. I would not have bought wireless, I wouldn't want the hassle of replacing all the batteries or risk any reliability issues with sensors located far away from the receiver. But with building a new home, it's an easy choice to hardwire everything.

It's sorta all or nothing if you really want to utilize the sensors to the fullest, right? You need full coverage for an entire house or you will lose track of people, and tracking occupants is one of the biggest reasons for buying the higher-priced sensor.

I see where you're coming from. I plan to keep the way the devices provide feedback very flexible so that you can use them with almost any (network ready) system that you have in place.
I think that right now the way it looks, I'm probably going to go with a wired solution for the power because it's not that tricky to get low voltage to a device, and send the signals wirelessly. This would eliminate the worries of having to replace batteries, while providing ample power for frequent readings and processing those readings.

We've already done similar to this on many installs using logic equations with our panels and installing Sure-Action Pulsors and processors. Works flawless, can be adjusted to account for/ignore pets and toddlers, and is invisible once installed. Only downside is it won't work on a slab.

Those are cool sensors, but not easy to implement. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that one would need to tear up their floor or ceiling underneath the floor where they would be installed. Personally, I would not want to tear up the expensive hardwood floors of a home to undertake a project like that. Secondly, you would need a PC running 24/7 to process the signals that they produce, no?


Thanks guys.

 

[tmbrown97]

speeddemon - I haven't seen delays that bad with UPB/Elk... I've always had lights turn on when doors open (any door to the garage turns on the garage lights; entry through any door while the house is armed lights the path from the door that was opened to kitchen, where you'll likely set down anything that may be in your hands. These are contact sensors, so they do trigger quickly; but in any case, the lights are on before the door has made it 1/4 of the way open - definitely a small fraction of a second, probably around 350ms)

There may be additional delays based on your sensor types and their placement, and/or the lighting technology you use - but I doubt it's a problem with the Elk itself or that it'd be any different with HAI.

That said maybe motions aren't the best way to go, but contact sensors - and for stairs where safety matters, I'd even toss around the idea of pressure pads under the carpet hard-wired for the fastest response. That, and in my house we use enough nigh-lights to keep a base level of safety around the halls and stairs.

 

[Del91574]

Those are cool sensors, but not easy to implement. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that one would need to tear up their floor or ceiling underneath the floor where they would be installed. Personally, I would not want to tear up the expensive hardwood floors of a home to undertake a project like that. Secondly, you would need a PC running 24/7 to process the signals that they produce, no?


Thanks guys.

It depends on when they are integrated into a system and the house itself. We've used them in lieu of a door contact on an install that had architectual doors, basically a 1/2" piece of plate glass closing into a stainless frame...nowhere to conceal a contact. We've also placed them on stair stringers, landings and on the joists entering a room or series of entrances/exits. They generally will pick up, on a "flat" floor an oval of about 3 bays X 8' but that is adjustable based on the processor itself, then factor in an equation/rule to judge occupancy based on # of faults, either an "in" or "out" per se, works fine for us, even more so with cross zoning or multiple units installed approaching a high concern area.

They're harder to use in a retro job if access to the joists is not available, either from above or below, but it's still do-able depending on how creative you are and the construction of the house.

We've found them to be more reliable than using motion based occupancy detection, but not the same as using positioning contacts on a closet door or something like that, but there are minature curtain based PIR's that recess and are asthetically pleasing, like the SPY series that work as well. It's also possible to use the GE RCR's to perform the same actions, again dependent of construction.

We haven't experienced the lighting control delays he has mentioned, so I'm not sure what form of interface and usage of devices he has had installled, UPB or powerline or something else interfacing with the loads and via serial interface.

 

[SpeedDemon]

I have a Centralite Elegance XL hooked up via serial port to the Elk M1G. More here regarding the lighting delays encountered with the Elk: http://www.cocoontech.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=14063

Hopefully it's just a bump in the road for me. I'm going to start implementing CQC for my automation control soon, so then instead of using the Elk for sending automation-related lighting commands to the Centralite (such as: "Turn on stair lights if nearby motion detector activates at night"), the Elk will just report the motion detector activation to the CQC server, and it can tell the Centralite system to bring the stair lights on. Hopefully it will be noticeably faster!

Quixote: Hope the feedback helped & best wishes if you decide to move forward on the sensor!

 

[tmbrown97]

Some of that does ring a bell... I probably set the OPT flag - and other factors may play in as well... luckily so far I've had good results.