Non-motion occupancy

[richardfj]

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can monitor occupancy in a room without the use of motion sensors?

My entertainment room is one of the few rooms in my house where I don't control the lights with motion sensors. I spend too long on my rear either watching movies or playing video games ... or even working at my desk without moving much. Motion control doesn't make any sense and would turn off the lights when I'm still in the room.

Surely there are some great minds out there that have run into the same issue.

Thoughts?

[billt]

Motion sensors in the right places should work, I doubt that you remain completely motionless!

If you are always using electronic equipment, use homeseer to monitor the state of the equipment to check for occupancy.

Pressure sensors under the seats.

[rmasonjr]

Someone on the board mentioned a great idea a while back - using a current sensor to monitor if a TV was on. This would be a good indication if the room was occupied - at least for my house - if the TV is on, chances are someone is in the room watching it.

[sjcato]

This looks interesting:

http://www.siebel-research.de/people...eople_tracker/

Anybody up to converting from *nix to Windows?

[richardfj]

I think I'll leave the "people tracking" to someone else ... but the current sensor was something I had thought about before ... just don't know if there is a good solution (read easy to implement). I currently use a TED for my whole house, but there is no way to isolate my equipment in my entertainment room. I agree though, setting it to sense occupancy based on when my TV is on is a good solution.

Did anyone ever find a solution for the current sensor?

I might try the motion sensor and just play with the sensitivity setting to see if it'll do the trick.

[zimmer62]

Some people are using a current transformer, and a DS10a with either the RFXCOM or the W800 to receive the signals from it. I tried this approach with some success, but it wasn't perfect for me since the devices I've tried monitoring have several levels of current draw. My projector will use more power when turning on etc... So I need to find a better solution as well.

It worked well on the washing machine though.

[Steve Q]

Richard,

If you just want the lights to stay on if the TV is ON and you have the ability to turn on/off your TV with Homeseer (via IR for example), you could easily set up a virtual device such as "Room occupied" that turns ON via the motion sensor and OFF 5 minutes after a TV IR/Off command is sent from Homeseer. Then have your lights turn ON/OFF based on a status change of the device "Room Occupied".

Another option is to use another motion sensor (perhaps by your bed) that would trigger the "Room occupied" virtual device to turn OFF. This way the lights will stay ON until you go to bed.

The current sensor is a good idea but the first time you have a guest over and the TV is not ON, and the lights suddenly turn OFF, you will not be happy!

Steve Q

[JClark]

I have been playing around with some different solutions for the same type of situation. Look at jon00's bluetooth plugin. Granted this is going to use the bluetooth of your cellphone, earpiece, etc, and not actually detect your person, but its alot more then just a detection of the phone. You can actually run a little piece of software on multiple pc's all around the house. They all consantly search for any and all bluetooth devices and report back to the homeseer pc running the plugin. because the app is not only reporting detection, but proximity as well, you should be able to use a mix of 3 or 4 15$ bluetooth adapters in various pc's to basically perform a bluetooth triangulation and determine your location within your home. The plugin will let you set the status of occupancy sensors based on the collection of data from all the recievers....... I Think.

I just installed plugin yesterday and was reading the docs on it and havent had time to really set up and play with it much. Let me know if you end up trying this and how it works.

[Simonk]

You can read the thread below to find out how I monitor my tv/media devices to see if they are on or off using the scart socket. Works really well !

http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=131343

[Rupp]

Did anyone ever find a solution for the current sensor?

Here's a pic of my Washing Machine monitor. It's as simple as it gets. One magnet and a power flash module.
http://board.homeseer.com/showpost.p...0&postcount=43

Here's the magnet I used.
http://www.crmagnetics.com/newprod/splitco.asp
3110

[xlucent]

Here's a pic of my Washing Machine monitor. It's as simple as it gets. One magnet and a power flash module.
http://board.homeseer.com/showpost.p...0&postcount=43

Here's the magnet I used.
http://www.crmagnetics.com/newprod/splitco.asp
3110

Rupp,

Is there a thread somewhere that covers how to use CR3110's and powerflash modules to monitor appliances? My wife would love it if I could make our whole house audio announce when the washer or dryer have shut off. (I noticed while searching for this on the forum that washer/dryer announcements are high up in everyone's "top 10 lists" for WAF.)

Bill

[Dafunktyfunk]

This would be great to do!

[Gogs]

You could simply cantrol your TV etc. using a appliance module, and if the mofule is on then the room is occupied.

I know takes the automation out of things.

[BootsC5]

I use GC100s to monitor IR commands (play, pause, etc) to determine occupancy. Door closure status in the bathrooms, computer 'ping'ability, phone 'ping'ability to see if a certain person is home, pressure sensors in the bed.

[Automated]

Why not just buy proper industrial over or under current sensors with the dry contacts feeding into either a ds10a or whatever your favorite i/o board is? I bought two this past week on eBay for 35 bucks (so 17.50 each). You can set the sensitivity to the right level, and the moment the device goes over (or under), it throws the relay. I plan to pick up a few more, as you can monitor many things this way, without needing to tap into the wiring of said circuit.

The undercurremt sensors are nice to use for things where you absolutely must know if something is on. You reverse your logic from the normal way of thinking about it, and thus if the sensor fails, it will make Homeseer think the device is on, thus alerting you to the fact that the sensor is broken.