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Event-driven access to my home after a run

randywestergren.com

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Re: Event-driven access to my home after a run

#21

Post by ho_schi »

bmilleare wrote: post #7

Automating such a narrow edge-case seems totally pointless. A much more likely scenario is that your battery dies while you're out, in which case you're still screwed. A better tried-and-tested real world solution that covers all scenarios is a simple key safe.

I suggest this tiny thing named "key" is an appropriate solution. Hard to break through dropping, no battery, the home doesn't need electricity and so on.

While I understand the tinkering here for fun, the author did ignored the actual problem of the drained battery completely?

Re: Event-driven access to my home after a run

#22

Post by bin_bash »

I'm really disappointed by all the comments here. OP showed a clever way he gets his garage door to open when he gets home from a run. It's an interesting look into home automation from scratch and exactly the kind of content I come to HN for.

This isn't posted in NY Times. He's not advocating everyone should go out and do this because of how much better it's made his life. He's not even claiming that it's necessarily better than putting a keypad on his garage. He just hacked together something cool and we should applaud people trying these kinds of things.

Re: Event-driven access to my home after a run

#25

Post by rwestergren »

ho_schi wrote: post #21
bmilleare wrote: post #7

Automating such a narrow edge-case seems totally pointless. A much more likely scenario is that your battery dies while you're out, in which case you're still screwed. A better tried-and-tested real world solution that covers all scenarios is a simple key safe.

I suggest this tiny thing named "key" is an appropriate solution. Hard to break through dropping, no battery, the home doesn't need electricity and so on. While I understand the tinkering here for fun, the author did ignored the actual problem of the drained battery completely?

I shared this elsewhere but I could have expressed the initial problem a little clearer, which actually was "enter my home without unlocking my phone which causes my phone to die in the cold."

Unlocking the screen caused the battery to drop immediately - it still had network connectivity prior to that.

Re: Event-driven access to my home after a run

#26

Post by Jaruzel »

I think that although his approach works, the smarter thing would be to fix a hi-definition camera pointing at his driveway entrance, and use OpenCV/ML/AI[1] to detect that it's him approaching the house and automatically open the garage door.

For bonus points he could then rig up a speaker to sing 'welcome home' as well...

For even more bonus points, anyone coming up the driveway that isn't him could be greeted by Barking-Dogs.mp3

---

[1] Or whatever that magic thing is that NCIS use every week.

Re: Event-driven access to my home after a run

#27

Post by mrweasel »

Oblitio wrote: post #16
mrweasel wrote: post #4

My feelings about these kinds of projects are a bit mixed. I certainly understand why, writing code that controls something in the real world is so much fun. However I actively avoid any kind of smart device in my home, beyond my vacuum cleaner. Having a computer control lighting, heating or access to my home is out of the question, I simply don't want to deal with it. I trust keys, switches and knobs.

You might deprive yourself from an interesting experience i had: My IoT light switches made the mental model of 'lightswitch on the door' to 'lightswitch were i need it'. It also allows you to actually have a light atmosphere which enhances how you use light. This is a stark contrast to a friend of mine who sits in a very bright and uncomfortable room. Using Alexa or Google for lights, timer and reminder also gave me…

> 'lightswitch were i need it'.

That would certainly be a plus. I have at least one missing lightswitch in my kitchen, and adding it would be rather complicated. Still it seems like overkill to invest in IoT to solve the issue of my lightswitch being 1,5m from where I'd want it to be.

The whole "light atmosphere" is something I already have, I just have to go around and turn on the lamps manually. As for the Alexa, Google Assistent or even Siri integration... I trust none of the company behind those technologies enough that I'd allow them to have a microphone in my home, constantly listening. It is beyond creepy.

Re: Event-driven access to my home after a run

#28

Post by hallway_monitor »

Very cool (not cold) solution! I would like to set up a similar system, which should be possible - I've recently bought a hubitat hub (highly recommended at $100) which uses groovy for scripting, and uses an installed app on my phone with geofencing to detect presence.

Re: Event-driven access to my home after a run

#29

Post by jacobrussell »

This is awesome! I love reading about projects like this. Always gets me thinking about how I can do little things like this for my life workflows.

> installing MyQ W-Fi connected garage doors

Haha you were already light-years ahead of me before you even started. I typically slide my key into a little pocket and pray it doesn't fall out. I think using events from your router is a great idea. I have recently been playing around with events you can send from routers and it has really opened up my mind to whole new avenues of creativity.

Re: Event-driven access to my home after a run

#30

Post by ivanbakel »

rwestergren wrote: post #25
ho_schi wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest this tiny thing named "key" is an appropriate solution. Hard to break through dropping, no battery, the home doesn't need electricity and so on. While I understand the tinkering here for fun, the author did ignored the actual problem of the drained battery completely?

I shared this elsewhere but I could have expressed the initial problem a little clearer, which actually was "enter my home without unlocking my phone which causes my phone to die in the cold." Unlocking the screen caused the battery to drop immediately - it still had network connectivity prior to that.

I think the initial problem was clearly-enough stated, and the GP's point is valid - why bother accounting for the case where your phone is so close to dying that you can't unlock the screen, when just a bit less battery life would mean that your phone dies regardless (and you're stuck outside anyways)?
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