HAH and home security
21 April, 2012 - 06:39
One of the things I am most interested in is home security and Home Automation,
I was surprised to see so little interest in this area. I've searched the forums and found nothing.
To my mind, a home alarm system integrated into the HAH would be a logical and natural thing to do.
If I break down what a home security system does:
- Provide contact breakers and PIR's to check if something happens. eg. a door is opened or somebody interacts with an infra red beam.
- If the alarm is active then turn a relay on to ring the bell or flash a light. Hopefully turn the alarm off after a certain amount of time to stop the neighbours torching your house to stop the bell ringing at 03:30.
- Provide a keypad to set various settings up.
This is not that different logically to what the HAH does. It waits for inputs from various devices and based on these inputs, triggers certain other devices to make things happen.
I am triviliasing some of the details, e.g. tamper proof wiring, setting up of various zones as go/no-go areas but unless I'm missing something there's a lot of common details.
The advantages of HAH is that it can easily bring other things into play as well, e.g. SMS, Twitter, easier control from the Internet, ability to add more components in, to have more sophisticated alarm security, such as turning a web cam on when the alarm is triggered to record events, add more sensors than just contact breakers and PIR.
My personal thoughts would be to create a message based system around HAH. The sensors could be directly managed via the HAH or a small PIC based controller could be made to manage the sensors themselves and communicate via xAP to the HAH.
I may be mising the point completely but a Home Alarm is not much more than this. It has security via anti-tamper systems, it has batteries for when the power is cut, it has keypads for data entry but at the end of the day, it monitors for events and sets an alarm off most of the time.
Your thoughts welcomed.
Rob
21 April, 2012 - 08:15
#3
RF Reception is key
I'm also rather surprised at the lack of discussion on this front. I already have a professionally installed home alarm system and SWMBO isn't going to let me rip this out & replace it with a HAH.
However, about 18months ago, I developed a RF receiver that connects to the HAH via xap-serial. It can decode the HomeEasy break circuit sensors and PIRs. http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenned/5169253197/ - yes, my HAH could send a tweet when the fridge door is opened! The magnet in the sensor doesn't seem too fussy and allows a little gap http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenned/5126739108 The really nice thing is that you get one signal on a 'break' and another on a 'make'. So doing things like spotting the fridge door being left open for too long is easy enough.
PIRs were handled by the same method. The writeup on this is here http://www.dbzoo.com/livebox/xap_serial?&#a_short_tutorial - note that the Lua example is in Plugboard V1 (yup it was that long ago) and needs converting to V2.
Various handheld RF remote controls work too - from the garage door opener ones with two buttons thru to the ones with many buttons, so there is a basic 'user input' capability.
The RF receiver kit itself is available at the shop http://www.homeautomationhub.com/content/homeeasy-rf-receiver
Whilst this isn't an entire solution, I think that these are worthwhile building blocks.
Clearly, scripts can be developed to run on the HAH to handle most any control and response scenario. Brett's choice of xAP as the messaging system behind all comms on the HAH, together with his Lua xAP handling library brings the writing of 'difficult' scripts donw to the level where mere mortals can get the job done.
Derek.
21 April, 2012 - 08:20
#4
On this theme
On the theme of home security( well more safety in this case). I have recently connected a cheap (<£5) carbon monoxide and flammable gas detector to an arduino connected to the HAH. This has been publishing gas levels to Pachube for a few days now and seems very sensitive to the small amounts of gas I have tested it with.
I want tointegrate with twitter/house alarm trigger for high gas levels but currently setting the alarm level is tricky until I have a good baseline.
I think this would make an ideal jeenode application for a remote Carbon monoxide / gas detector in the home! Power consumption is high so would have to be powered via something other than batteries!
The applications for HAh are really limitless with a bit of imagination!
Garry
21 April, 2012 - 10:51
#6
I was thinking of doing that!
what device did you use (why re-invent wheel)
Dean
21 April, 2012 - 11:46
#7
This is it
Dean,
If you're referring to the gas sensor here it is:
http://www.hobbytronics.co.uk/mq7-carbon-monoxide-sensor?keyword=Mq7 It's early days at the moment but so far so good! Garry
21 April, 2012 - 12:31
#8
wow
Thats a cool site (added to the bookmarks) wife saw what i was looking at and told me to get off it now, just as i was getting credit cardout :)
21 April, 2012 - 12:38
#9
I know! Can get lost for hours on it
Have fun ;)
G
Rob,
I agree. One of the things I have wanted to do since purchasing my HAH was to integrate my security. I have managed very basic integration such that when my house security or smoke alarms go off I get a twitter notification and I can also trigger the alarm remotely using the tamper circuit and a HAh relay. This is a start but I would really like to arm/disarm remotely but have not found a way into my third party alarm system. I, like you, have therefore thought about moving everything over to the HAH. In fact I purchased a sevond livebox for this purpose but not progressed at all yet. Still plenty of "easier" things To do on my original HAh first.
I will watch this thread with interest and hopefully start on this project soon
Like you say the hardware is available it's just about writing the scripting.
Cheers
Garry