You don't need cameras for that, just motion sensors.
> That server makes decisions on if lights should be on...in that room.
You don't need a server for that, just a motion-sensing switch. They can be totally offline. My office has them to shut off lights automatically when a conference room becomes unoccupied.
https://www.homedepot.com/b/Electrical-Wiring-Devices-Light-...
It can get annoying if you're not moving much, but the key point is: no camera or server required.
> That server makes decisions on...if A/C should be running in that room.
Ecobee thermostats can already do that using motion/temperature sensors. They run fine without an internet connection.
Thank goodness for phone flashlights!
A new dystopian developer-productivity metric.
Edit: typo
By the way, German workplace safety regulations require a certain minimum of light at a workplace.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_infrared_sensor [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_looking_infrared
Maybe, but that seems like a lot of work for little gain.
You probably don't actually have that much control over the AC in your rooms unless you have zoned heating and a lot of zones, regardless of how smart your sensors are.
Intent is a very important factor when answering the question "should the lights be on," I don't think you'll be able to predict that. For instance: if movement is detected in the bedroom at 2AM, should the lights come on? The answer is: a very strong maybe.
You would be collecting data from many sources in order to predict intent. This is why you need a centralized server.
Please explain, exactly, what other sources you would collect data from and how the central server would process it to determine if I want the lights on in the middle of the night.
IMHO, determining intent in this scenario is impossible without...
1. a mind-reading sensor, or...
2. an explicit user signal, such as a button-press or command.
The only realistic option is a user signal, and most of those options obviate a lot of these prediction ideas.
I think there's a lot less practical value to having a "central server" controlling everything than you seem to assume.
The more data, the more smarter. In fact, the only difference between a thermostat and the human mind is the number of datas. This is because the Law of Averages predicts that half of all datas will be relevant.
There are several important caveats to this statement.
> In fact, the only difference between a thermostat and the human mind is the number of datas.
This is an oversimplification that borders on dogma.
> This is because the Law of Averages predicts that half of all datas will be relevant.
An interesting interpretation and application.
Machine learning navel-gazing is the new "throw a start-up at it", so I'm guessing the answer to this is going to be "if we have enough data..."
That's how I feel about Alexa.
As someone who doesn't have a voice for radio, I much prefer being able to interact through dexterity. Besides, I'm very picky when it comes to which specific track of music is to be played (out of various similarly named pieces of music).
* I don't think take-up is quite as big as the tech world currently makes it out to be. People in my circles don't really have that kind of disposable income and are prioritising other purchases first.
So yeah, Alexa is a lot of extra literal work for little gain.
My main point was the original poster's idea was probably focusing on the wrong kind of sensor for what he wanted to do. He could still network a bunch of motion sensors.
Also, I'd dispute the idea that my proposals were less "modifiable." If only because they're far easier to implement and a couple of orders of magnitude cheaper, so it's practical to replace if more capabilities are needed.
I don't think the number of people in a room will give you meaningful information to tell you "how much to crank up the HVAC." Also, the HVAC systems in most homes aren't capable of even cranking up the HVAC in a particular room.
This is what the "Internet of Things" should be doing, but seldom does.
> The second advisor, a software developer, immediately recognized the danger of such short-sighted thinking. [...] "A toaster that only makes toast will soon be obsolete. If we don't look to the future, we will have to completely redesign the toaster in just a few years."
A lot of home automation stuff seems like something that would be fun to make, but not something I really want to have. I mean, the AC might be a good energy saver (a smarter thermostat) but that's not something I want, more like something that I would buy if it was cheap and practical enough.
To some extent, this is a phenomenon of early technology. It feels full of potential, so you want to play with it but it doesn't really do anything you really need yet. The early web was ki d of like that. We made sites because we wanted to make sites, moreso than because we wanted to have them.
Home automation though... Im kind of skeptical that this goes anywhere useful. The useful examples people think of (eg remote close all the windows and lock the doors) are more about mechanisation than automation.
Alas, remote controlling those blinds would be a major hassle since AFAIK I would have to install 6 wifi-enabled devices and tear holes everywhere (not even sure there is a powerline near) - and likely do all the programming myself. Thanks but no thanks.
I've been working on a custom UI that sits on top of the Wink Hub API to unify everything, but I'be been stuck with their almost completely undocumented Pubnub event API.
Why would you even want such a system?
My flat uses the Button-Framework which provides a really convenient UI/UX. The edge between 2 nodes (rooms) has a button (a haptic device to switch between boolean states) at around hand-height that you can press to switch the light on or off. It works quite well (it uses a switch-system technically) and the user decides by her/himself if the light should be on or off and just presses the button after careful reasoning.
Granted, it doesn't use Docker, but it really works well and needs low-maintainance. My model is running since 23 years and I never had any issues - it's even open source.
And ideally? All of it integrated. It actually sounds nice to say "I'm going home", and have Maps say "today that will take 35, should your oven start preheating when you're 20 minutes out?" IoT devices are overrated, but I can absolutely imagine a critical mass of integrated tools being very useful.
But I'm not even slightly willing to do that. It's too much information and too much risk surface. I'd pay a hefty premium to get local-data-only versions of these products, but no one is offering that, and it doesn't look like they're going to start.
Not yet preheating the oven though :)
Waze also knows where I'm going in advance and most of the time it gets it right, like every Thu evening "are you heading to [evening school] ?". My weekly schedule is exactly the same 99% of the time but sometimes it still makes obvious mistakes. If you need an AI for that it must be a very simple one, yet it still fails.
Google maps also auto saves my parking location most of the time but other times it doesn't, for reasons unknown. Things like that make it hard for me to have faith in future versions of this stuff.
That sounds awesome until the company providing that service starts abusing their knowledge of their location. That abuse doesn't even have to necessarily be malicious in nature either. For example, Google Maps on Android started asking me to rate, review, and/or take photos of my present location if they deemed it a point of interest (certain restaurants, parks, etc). I never opted in to this feature and the only way to disable it that I've figured out is to literally disable all location services on the phone.
I really dislike the idea of Google storing a timestamped record of almost every place I've ever visited. Tt has to beconstantly phoning home in order to deliver the request to document my visit within a minute or two of my arrival and that constant reminder that Big Brother Google is tracking me at every moment is just disturbing on so many levels. Even if they aren't using that data right now, remember the "data is never destroyed" principle of the internet.
On a side note, I would have ditched Android if I didn't need it for work simply because use of the GPS radio is hidden behind the acceptance of enabling Google's Location system and all the invasions of privacy that entails.
Open source, gets you most of the way there.
I think "find" and similar tools are now much more advanced so it might work better out of the box now.
Your vulnerability isn't a targeted attack: you are not valuable enough to be worth the effort to figure out your system. As an attacker on your system I'd have to figure out how to break in, and then how to use the hardware you have. You are more valuable as part of a botnet - attacks that already exist. (if you are a politician then maybe, but that person is also vulnerable to a targeted attack on their amazon system - probably more so because the target is easier to figure out).
That is they will target everybody because they know in a few years that will include somebody who they currently think is a nobody.
Of course as AI gets better and cheaper they may eventually listen to everything to see what who can be targeted automatically for what.
Just working for a company that an agency is surveilling is enough to make you worth targeting.
As a random example: let's say that I want to kill someone who lives in your neighborhood. I could analyze your conversations, comings and goings to figure out when and how to kill that person, and blame it on you. I could on a continual basis run numbers on everyone emitting data in your neighborhood, until someone had arrived at a point where their friends would testify against them on the basis of conversations with the potential patsy, that patsy had no alibi, and tailor the murder on the basis of the means that the patsy had available to them at the time.
I could also just be trying to figure out if you were a homosexual, or muslim.
> They should feel more comfortable than an equivalent system built by a company that is looking to profit off of your data - and additionally, you can give the guest stronger guarantees that when you say that the system is "off", it actually is.
They won't, because they'll be concerned the person that implemented it is a creeper. When regular people think "cameras installed in the room," they think this: https://www.bustle.com/p/airbnb-host-was-caught-with-a-hidde...
Distrust of a person is more more immediate in visceral. Distrust of a company is more distant and esoteric. The former usually trumps the latter.
An encrypted hard disk with the key on a USB stick would be enough, just keep the key somewhere separate and you'll only have to plug it in when there's a power outage.
The main fight needs to happen at application level, not infrastructure. Cloud services are already mostly transparent and interchangeable. But applications aren't. The problem is, it's the application vendor that owns the code, determines where's going to run, and asks you to send over the data. How it should be working, is that you own the data and determine location of computing, and own or rent code to be run on that data.
I’d recommend something like this in every room, or even IR sensors, over cameras. You don’t want to capture video of your children jerking off.
You could just use an infrared motion sensor. They are dirt cheap and widely used for controlling lights.
The AC unit at work has one, too.
So, all of this already exists. Without spying capabilities, that is.
There are many methods for occupancy tracking without cameras. IR sensors, antennas in the walls, NFC (bleh), proximity sensors.
A cookie is a device "that is inserted under the clients head by the brain and kept there for a week, giving it time to accurately replicate the individuals consciousness. It is then removed and installed in a larger, egg shaped device which can be connected to a computer or tablet (to automate their smart house controls as if the house was knew their personal preferences moving from room to room.)"
Low tech alternative solution from my friends? Get LEDs. Never turn off the lights. This way the room you are going to will always be lit.
hackaday.com/blog/ will have some details on how people set up computer home controllers as well as working with OpenCV
Less likely to be seen as creepy and such systems already exist.
If you just need 'is a person in this room' or 'how many people are in this room' levels of data, solutions to this problem have existed for decades. No need to over complicate a solved problem.
I'm pretty sure all current technology only works with the have a wifi decide on your person. It is significantly easier to do this and for the most part good enough.
Not only can you detect motion and objects through physical mass using WiFi spectrum with a properly equipped device, you can detect if someone is breathing.
“What's more, this "Time Reversal Machine" technology is essentially just some clever algorithmic work with little burden on the processor, so it can potentially be added to any existing WiFi mesh routers via a firmware update. In other words, security system vendors should take note.”
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