This has been discussed before in some way but raising the question again and trying to go one more step ahead - a wild (wild) thought.
Is there a way that Vera can check the presense as in “Honey I am home” from a prospective of a family with kids who cant drive yet.
ping_sensor Iphone in Wifi Range (my IP’s are bound with mac addresses with long lease time and dont change) but kids are too young to have their own iPhones or in general case everyone may not have a wifi Phone or wifi is switched off etc
Google latitude was one of the discussions
iPhones wouldn’t work anyway, as the wifi radio is always off when in standby mode.
This is something I’ve been looking for a solution on too. I was thinking on maybe trying to find a small battery powered windows sensor and putting it on my key chain without the magnet.
The idea would if that sensor is available and tripped, I’m home. If it’s unavailable I’m not home. Problems would be battery life and I haven’t done testing to see how to determine if a device is unavailable through Luup yet.
[quote=“mikeholczer, post:2, topic:165460”]iPhones wouldn’t work anyway, as the wifi radio is always off when in standby mode.
This is something I’ve been looking for a solution on too. I was thinking on maybe trying to find a small battery powered windows sensor and putting it on my key chain without the magnet.
The idea would if that sensor is available and tripped, I’m home. If it’s unavailable I’m not home. Problems would be battery life and I haven’t done testing to see how to determine if a device is unavailable through Luup yet.[/quote]
I stand corrected on iPhone - you’re right. Battery powered senor seems like a nice stop gap arrangement that can as well be powered by cigerette lighter but that will be car dependent and may not work for kids in my case but a great start.
Hmmm that seems a long term solution with amazing possibilities. I happen to have a friend who started a start-up dedicated to RFID apps. I will sell this idea to combine RFID and ZWAVE to him. Some of the applications I can already think of (will require a network of RFID sensors collaborating with Zwave though and little dreaming/thinking to add AI).
Add it to your car and MCV watches your car and alerts when stolen.
Being a small chip, possibility to add it in your Kids bag and even to Jewelry or expensive items - when removed from home you get an alert with the possibility that if everything is removed consider that as theft and take action with VOIP calling to Cops/ADT/yourself/neighbor/friend…
Wal-Mart already started using RFID, believe couple of years now, specifically in their pharma department. Eventually we will have all our groceries etc tagged with RFID. The solution will help in doing more automation and help in doing inventory and avoid “Honey we are out of Milk” as a starter
it’s a little “key finder” sort of thing. Ther’s little keyring sort of things that you buy to mate to the finder- powered by a watch battery. my wife is always misplacing her phone, keys, etc. So I have the little keychain things on her keyring and her phone, and even a couplu on my boys’ nintendo’s as they are always misplacing them in the couch cushins or the like.
the little Handheld controller (remote control sized) thing finds the keychains anywhere in my house. When you aim the controler at the keychains (no matter where in the house) the controller shows a bar graph and chirps louder and as you get closer it gets louder still. Each keychain thing has it’s own number and you can name them on the controllers display. So If I’m looking for my wifes phone i activate that one and it looks for just that one and not her keys. I think it can do 8 or 16 differnt keychains.
It has a mode on it where if the keychains leave the recieving area of the controller thingie that the contoller can alarm. The manual suggests mothers stick a keychain thing on their kids when they go to a park and then apparnetly you can ignore your kids and hear a tone if they leave the proper radius. Personally I’d just watch my kids- but hey to each his own.
but anyway that’s the exact sort of hardware you would need- but rather than the thingie setting off the “your kid is stolen” tone- it could flip a z-wave sensor for “little johny left the house”
[quote=“Keeper, post:5, topic:165460”]…Eventually we will have all our groceries etc tagged with RFID. The solution will help in doing more automation and help in doing inventory and avoid “Honey we are out of Milk” as a starter
RFID Amazing Idea!!!
regards
Keeper[/quote]
ps I think the android fridge that scans barcodes will take care of the milk in the future- lol.
I would love to hear from people that have seen longer-range RFID solutions. I looked at this last yr (for a side-project) and couldn’t find [commercial, relatively cheap] options for “passive” RFID that went beyond a few feet in range.
The Alarm guys have a few, as does Sparkfun, but they only work to a few feet so you had to pull out a swipe card to use them. I was looking for a more “passive” interaction… where you keep it in your pocket etc, and would have 1 sensor per room (for spacial awareness)
If a medium-range RFID cant be made to work, then I’ve like to see Bluetooth hooks, or the low level Kernal modules enabled (etc), in Vera. I’m always carrying the phone, and I could effectively “pair” it’s Bluetooth with points around the House so it could track me (for lights and stuff). It polls often enough that it should work just fine.
I dont think passive can go more than just a few inches- maybe a foot. I’m not an expert of anything but I think the power emmited from the reader to get a reply to travel more than that from something passive probably would need to be so much that you wouldn’t want it blasting you all day long.
BUt the watch battery type can go pretty far. The one’s I linked to above cover my entire 3 story home (it’s only a townhouse though so never farther than maybe 100 feet from the bottom corner of hte basement to the farthest point in a top floor bedroom.). They’re smaller than the “HID” proxkey keyfobs which are passive
I wonder if those loc8tor tags can interact with anything else besides their handheld controller…
We looked at RFID for employee monitoring last year. Very cool technology
There are wiegan to USB converters out there already, http://rfideas.com/products/wiegand_converters/wiegand_to_usb/index.php
Wiegan is what most all RFID stuff “talks”.
Using RFID you could tell where everyone is in the house down to a resolution of a few feet.
We were looking at badging employees for entry control and computer access. A simple badge (I think it can be passive and still work) was all that was needed. Of course they make rings and watches and key fobs. The equipment is not cheap (by home use standards) but very cool.
@mversluis: I’ve subscribed to the RSS Feeds for the NL-based project, since it looks like it’d be fairly “reasonably” priced.
@markbannister, looks like very interesting stuff, but kinda expensive given my particular use-case. Interesting to see the RFID+Motion for attachment to HiFi gear and the like to detect theft. Unfortunately, unless you get the “Miracle” (http://www.iautomate.com/miracle_5104.html) they dont seem to be very forthcoming on the protocol specifics. Pity you have to buy this extra device just to get access to the data from the [already RS-232 enabled] r500a (http://www.iautomate.com/r500ha.html)
Looks like the r500sp model (http://www.iautomate.com/r500sp.html) would be something that a Vera plugin could be written to talk to over ethernet. It’s $150 cheaper than the r500ha model and “Miracle” device combo, but at $500 is still pretty pricey.
Actually, if you look at their wiring diagram (http://www.firecontrolinc.com/downloads/draft_block_diagram.pdf) it looks like they use a RJ-45 connector, but not for ethernet and they show which wires care the RS232 in/out. I don’t know enough about RS232, to know if the info on that PDF would be enough to connect it up to a serial port with a little soldering. I’d spend some time looking into it if it was cheaper. I think this could be a good solution for someone with deeper pockets.
@mikeholczer, wiring is fully published so that’s not a problem. I have the bits to “make” a cable, but you wouldn’t since they require you to use their Power injector which includes the RJ45 and the RS-232 Port, along with the plugpack… no need to make up a special cable. I could also solder one up, as needed, but it would void warranty according to their Web page…
They don’t publish the Protocol though, as in what “bytes” you’ll see on the Serial interface, what they look like, how to interpret them, how they’re delimited (etc, etc)
@denix, yeap, that’s why I mentioned the BT+Kernel options earlier in the thread, and have in various other threads here for some time now.
That was my original “plan B” when first investigations showed a lack of long-range RFID. The downside is that I’m yet to see small “keychain” (always on) BT devices that have any sort of battery life. The Phone was a reasonable compromise, since you’re inherently charging it anyway, and it’s not “Vendor specific” solution (per-se)
It’s just a little harder to carry around with you everywhere in the house, just to have lights turn on/off etc.
Got it, I have very little knowledge of RS-232 and thought that it has a formal protocol. I just did a quick Wikipedia search and now I see that it is much lower level than I thought.
