Room based proximity detection

[kideon]

I want to wear this:

http://nfcring.com

and have homeseer know what room I am in. Any ideas? it would be worth putting a Rpi or preferably an arduino (since it can lose power without corrupting the SD card) Set and forget is the new motto.

[mrhappy]

The n in nfc stands for near, these things as they are unpowered have a range of about three inches at the most. Unless you want to scan the ring every time you walk in a room it's unlikely to be any use..

[jon00]

The detection distance is 1mm (0.03937in) - read the FAQ. You would have to touch a sensor mounted outside every room for this to work.

[martywinston]

NFC tags are very-close-proximity only devices.

For "knowing" it's you in a room the only ways to do that are Bluetooth Smart for near-field or one of the longer-range (ergo more costly) RFID scanners and tags.

You could probably adapt one of the Bluetooth tag or finder products - they are generally good for 6-12 months battery life and retail for under $30 - but you would have to figure a way to make an in-room Bluetooth-enabled device communicate to HomeSeer when it makes a connection with a paired tag, and which paired tag - and as you know, that can be pretty slow.

[kideon]

I was thinking that there were mid to large range rfid scanners that could work like something used in warehouse asset tracking. If only my pebble could be a beacon...

[kideon]

example of a mid range reader, 1-9 meters

http://www.rfidconnect.com/productde...d-89cd354481da

[gearyt]

I am trying to use beacons, adjust their placement and power to track as we move around the house.

[LeoS]

https://youtu.be/dMWEl6GBGqk

[footVOL]

iBeacons are a really cool technology, I have 10 of the Radius Network USB iBeacons scattered throughout the house and 2 of their new X4 iBeacons located outdoors. Currently I am simply using this as a presence detection mechanism for who is Home and who is Away.

Precise location tracking is technically "possible" but VERY difficult and using current deployment strategies probably not feasible in the home environment. The main hurdle is the application that is need on the mobile device to take in the iBeacon broadcast, perform the calculation and then report it back to the automation platform. Oh and by the way do this with subfoot, accuracy across multiple floors. I work in the positioning world in my real life and I can tell you the deployment of the beacons, the geometry and quality of the broadcast coming from them would a HUGE impediment for residential deployment.

It is difficult enough to get a rock solid implementation on just Home and Away using iBeacons at this point (hence the 12 iBeacons I am currently employing). Geofency and the PHL Location Plug In have helped IMMENSELY, but it still requires the phone to report to HS and if either misses this report everything goes sideways.

And lets not forget the most impossible part of this implementation, convincing the wife to carry here phone with her all over the house from room to room to make sure we know where she is at and can control the house to her exact and never variable liking.

[TomTom]

haha...
how are your iBeacons detected? I had tried it with a raspberry pi and got about 30+ft from them. Just didn't have know how to integrate into HS.
If you had a piBecon in each room it could give you distance to compare. Someone on here said they were working on another non pi board (begalebone??) that could be used for detecting beacons(multi board, multi room install).

iBeacons are a really cool technology, I have 10 of the Radius Network USB iBeacons scattered throughout the house and 2 of their new X4 iBeacons located outdoors. Currently I am simply using this as a presence detection mechanism for who is Home and who is Away.

Precise location tracking is technically "possible" but VERY difficult and using current deployment strategies probably not feasible in the home environment. The main hurdle is the application that is need on the mobile device to take in the iBeacon broadcast, perform the calculation and then report it back to the automation platform. Oh and by the way do this with subfoot, accuracy across multiple floors. I work in the positioning world in my real life and I can tell you the deployment of the beacons, the geometry and quality of the broadcast coming from them would a HUGE impediment for residential deployment.

It is difficult enough to get a rock solid implementation on just Home and Away using iBeacons at this point (hence the 12 iBeacons I am currently employing). Geofency and the PHL Location Plug In have helped IMMENSELY, but it still requires the phone to report to HS and if either misses this report everything goes sideways.

And lets not forget the most impossible part of this implementation, convincing the wife to carry here phone with her all over the house from room to room to make sure we know where she is at and can control the house to her exact and never variable liking.

[S-F]

While I appreciate the thought and other efforts people are expending on this technology, I ultimately think it's a wonky PITA that's never going to work really well and that has huge caveats. Having to carry a phone around with you all the time is a huge caveat and simply isn't possible 100% of the time. So I haven't gotten too interested in this kind of thing. The extent of my phone related status stuff is Home/Away and in the back yard/inside. The former is accomplished with BLLan and Jon00's RCCNM. The latter is accomplished with UltraLog parsing the logs from my Unifi access points.

Really we need a visual technology that knows where doors are and can detect specific people going in and out of them. It would need to have rock n' roll night vision too. Really, anything less is always going to be a PITA.

So far this is the most promising thing I've seen. If it works as promised we will need a HS plugin stat. I would refinance my house to have this tied in with HS. http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=175518

http://www.apical.co.uk/spirit/art/

[TomTom]

know what your saying, also there is lots of learning going on still about BLE , even by Radaris. But I was thinking along the lines of smartwatches, specifically Apple Watch. My wife wears her's all the time. More than room to room, my need would be redundant verification. The big plus of BLE is the range. My initial goal, would be to use BLE along with IFTTT geofence to verify home/away. I've used BLAN and did like it but, each device monitored seemed to increase the CPU usage a bit. After about 15 devices my CPU usage was about 35-40%. Turned off BLAN and cpu usage went back down to 2-3%. Haven't figured out a way around the increased cpu usage yet.

[randy]

While I appreciate the thought and other efforts people are expending on this technology, I ultimately think it's a wonky PITA that's never going to work really well and that has huge caveats. Having to carry a phone around with you all the time is a huge caveat and simply isn't possible 100% of the time. So I haven't gotten too interested in this kind of thing. The extent of my phone related status stuff is Home/Away and in the back yard/inside. The former is accomplished with BLLan and Jon00's RCCNM. The latter is accomplished with UltraLog parsing the logs from my Unifi access points.

iBeacons and GeoFences are very reliable for me. We always have our phones with us, but I agree 100% that it is generally a PITA.

Really we need a visual technology that knows where doors are and can detect specific people going in and out of them. It would need to have rock n' roll night vision too. Really, anything less is always going to be a PITA.

So far this is the most promising thing I've seen. If it works as promised we will need a HS plugin stat. I would refinance my house to have this tied in with HS. http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=175518

http://www.apical.co.uk/spirit/art/

Yes, yes, YES. If this technology works reliably and is cost effective, it will change everything.

[S-F]

iBeacons and GeoFences are very reliable for me. We always have our phones with us, but I agree 100% that it is generally a PITA.

For more general stuff I agree with you. I am using PHLocation and it works pretty well (even though I some times seem move across town to a place I've never been before..... In my sleep. :/ ). The home/away and inside/outside stuff works pretty well too. Now. If we're talking about the ability to track a person from room to room.... That's a whole different can of worms. I don't think ibeacons are the answer. AT ALL. I usually have my phone in a holster on my belt when I'm awake. So that's fine for ME. But many people leave their phones in their purses and the like. And op top of that I have two children who are too young (9 and 6) to have phones and aren't going to for some years. Oh, and how about when I get out of bed in the middle of the night, in the buff, to take a leak or get a drink of water? I'm not taking my phone to the can with me when I'm 1/2 asleep and naked. Asking a woman to do that? Divorce is expensive and can leave a one a pale husk of the man he used to be.

So the moral of all this is that needing to carry some item around is at best a dirty hack that works only a fraction of the time. HS3 has the ability to do crazy complicated things but it needs MORE DATA! We need better sensors. We don't need anything else right now in the world of HA. Sensor density. One of the devices linked to in my previous post are worth more than 1,000 of the sensors that are on the market ATM.

I have read that the Gates house (As in Bill Gates) has some HA capability and it has people tracking. Here's the rub: people need to wear a pin on their clothing so the HA system can track them from room to room. Lame. He should invest a few billion in occupancy detection. Then invest a few more billion in HomeSeer.

Can you all imagine what HS could accomplish with sensors that work as those described in the article and something on the order of a BILLION dollars? It would change the first world within one year in such a dramatic way that people would be hard pressed to believe their eyes..

[TomTom]

I am using PHLocation and it works pretty well (even though I some times seem move across town to a place I've never been before..... In my sleep. :/ ). .

This happened way too often for me when it was still Snevl Latitude that I never went back. Also seemed to break often which needed too much maintenance, but that was under HS2. I have say IFTTT geofence has been amazingly accurate and no maintenance needed.