Sensors for the Entire House

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Sensors for the Entire House

LennonNZ

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#195838 7-May-2016 22:03

I am slowly getting my house automated.

I've had for a number of years my whole house with Apple HUE Bulbs so I can turn off/change individually any light in the whole house.

What I am missing is Sensors (or some other way) which is not too expensive to know where I (or a device I have with me). Ie go into the bathroom and the lights come on.. After it seems no movement turn it off etc.

Any suggestions? Somethings I can put in the whole house/all the rooms and then I can write rules on what to do when it seems movement.

Triangulate on a bluetooth/wifi/BLE signal? IR? RFID? iBeacon (http://estimote.com/)

jnimmo

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#1548078 7-May-2016 22:13

I'm looking at putting in a few of the Aeotec Z-Wave motion sensors http://aeotec.com/z-wave-sensor

Probably need some sort of Z-wave controller though to interface with the Philips Hue

Hopefully one can do a local interface rather than via internet API which some seem to do

SumnerBoy

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#1548127 8-May-2016 01:02

Unless you already have home alarm PIR sensors I think the best options are the Fibaro Motion sensor or Aeon Labs MultiSensor 6. These things are tiny, the batteries last well over a year if you configure them correctly, and they are very reliable (IME). The reason I mention home alarm PIR sensors is that they are probably the best method of motion detection since they are hard wired (no batteries), good quality PIRs. By chucking a Fibaro Universal Binary sensor in your alarm panel you can monitor two PIRs per Binary Sensor which allows them to serve a dual purpose - alarm sensor when the alarm is armed, and motion detection when you are home and the alarm is disarmed.

Of course anything Z-Wave based requires a controller but the cheapest option, a USB Z-Stick + Rasp Pi is pretty cost effective.

jnimmo

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#1548160 8-May-2016 07:53

Good point about the PIRs. I was also wondering about installing PIRs and there is a book on Arduino which shows how to wire them up for a home alarm or motion sensing, just would need X analog input pins to interface with X PIRs

Stu

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#1548182 8-May-2016 08:54

Or go the easy route?

http://www.bunnings.co.nz/arlec-security-sensor-ceiling-360-angle-white_p04370674

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cisconz

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#1548202 8-May-2016 10:19

A good alarm panel will output all sensors via RS232

Hmmmm

itxtme

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#1548244 8-May-2016 11:27

LennonNZ:

Triangulate on a bluetooth/wifi/BLE signal? IR? RFID? iBeacon (http://estimote.com/)

Triangulation would be overkill with beacons as walls will likely give enough disruption to ensure a low RSSI on a beacon when within a specific room. Estimote are fine, but expensive - lots of other suppliers, Radbeacon for example does an excellent coin cell beacon for $12 US. If you did go the beacon route you would need to carry your phone everywhere (this is what interacts and does what you need when it sees the beacon). In a lot of ways the movement sensors in the home environment are a much better fix.

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jnimmo

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#1548247 8-May-2016 11:40

Like the alarm panel idea, where can I buy one from to install myself though? maybe a DSC

LennonNZ

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#1548257 8-May-2016 12:29

I already have an alarm in the house with sensors but the sensors are only placed in areas which have entries so I would think useless for knowing where someone is , only useful to know if someone was in the house.

I'll look at the Alarm and see if I can get it to output if I sensors goes off.

cisconz

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#1548261 8-May-2016 12:43

You can always add more sensors - and if the panel itself doesn't support it, a panel upgrade (Replace the PCB and Keypad, but keep existing sensors and cabling etc) is usually easy to complete.

Hmmmm