Displaying alerts on the DFP2 (Traffic)

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • Kevin
    Moderator
    • Jan 2004
    • 558

    #16
    Originally posted by Paul_B View Post
    Yipppeeee it is now working.
    Paul
    Great stuff :-)

    I wonder what the problem was before - I'm suspecting that one or other of the xAP applications was binding to that Bluetooth interface perhaps. Most recent xAP applications shouldn't grab the xAP port even if they do start before the hub (a recommended design change a couple of years back)

    Would be interesting to see if the xAP Bluetooth 'proximity' application proves useful in terms of room occupancy for Cortex. You would just create a virtual PIR type sensor in Cortex for the BT receiver in one of the rooms (and careful placement such that the sensor only detects in that room)

    The fact that it is actually identifying a specific person (well phone) wouldn't be used as such but may have other applications for say announcement routings, call/music following or something.

    Let us know if you do anything interesting here with multiple Bluetooth sensors.

    K
    Last edited by Kevin; 1 January 2009, 01:36 PM.

    Comment

    • Paul_B
      Automated Home Legend
      • Jul 2006
      • 608

      #17
      You mean like something interesting apart from identifying everyone in the street with a BT phone. Hey maybe if the post-woman has a BT enabled phone then it can alert me to her approaching and I don't miss her ringing the bell

      Comment

      • Dave G
        Automated Home Lurker
        • Jan 2009
        • 8

        #18
        Is Xap Blue able to measure Bt signal strength, I know homeseer can. if it could then based on this it would be easy to set a level that would ensure it would report presence if the BT phone was in the room (eg within 3 meters etc) then possible with 3 BT Dongles an exact position could be achieved with triangulation ? This would give excellent presence detection and uses would be limitless to me.

        Comment

        • toscal
          Moderator
          • Oct 2005
          • 2061

          #19
          From experience in using radio navigation/positioning systems I would suggest using 4 bluetooth dongles. Three is the minimum you need for triangulation (hence the name I guess), but if the signal on one dongle is very weak or intermittent you may not get a good fix. Plus with 4 you can just take the 3 with the strongest signal and use this to get a position. In a large house you may need even more.
          IF YOU CAN'T FIX IT WITH A HAMMER, YOU'VE GOT AN ELECTRICAL PROBLEM.
          Renovation Spain Blog

          Comment

          • Paul_B
            Automated Home Legend
            • Jul 2006
            • 608

            #20
            Why not nine and triangulate the triangulates? SHould I get my coat?

            Comment

            • toscal
              Moderator
              • Oct 2005
              • 2061

              #21
              Sounds painful.
              IF YOU CAN'T FIX IT WITH A HAMMER, YOU'VE GOT AN ELECTRICAL PROBLEM.
              Renovation Spain Blog

              Comment

              • KirasHome
                Automated Home Jr Member
                • Oct 2006
                • 37

                #22
                Three works for 2D space, but I think you actually need 4 dongles to get an accurate fix in 3D. With one dongle and a range you define a sphere where the phone must be. If you have 2 dongles and a range from each you can define a circle where the phone must be. If you add a third dongle with a range it'll intersect the circle at two points. If you add a fourth dongle you'll resolve it down to a single point. GPS generally manages to get a fix with 3 satellites because one of the two points the 3 satellites define will be on the surface on the planet, the other one is in outer space somewhere. Your GPS assumes your on the surface and not floating somewhere in a space suit :-).
                (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS#Pos...n_introduction)
                (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilateration)
                I also have a feeling that you can increase the accuracy if the dongles are not in the same plane, so for a house you could put two on the ground floor at the diagonally opposite corners, and two on the top floor but on the opposite corners.
                I have to admit my brain is starting to ache trying to visualise this :-)

                Comment

                • Karam
                  Automated Home Legend
                  • Mar 2005
                  • 863

                  #23
                  How accurate is the ranging from signal strength in practice? Certainly I know in free space it should be straightforward so perhaps in a particular room its ok but what about attenuation through different walls, floors etc. ?

                  Comment

                  • Dave G
                    Automated Home Lurker
                    • Jan 2009
                    • 8

                    #24
                    Ok, had not thought of that, probably best to use a dongle in each room then and the block walls may be enough to contain the signal to that room.

                    Comment

                    • chris_j_hunter
                      Automated Home Legend
                      • Dec 2007
                      • 1713

                      #25
                      maybe several sensing methods used together might work best ... this one, maybe, plus PIRs, reed-switches, etc ... how about air-movement (used in some cars), gas and sound (voice, glass-breaking, etc) sensors, too ... with some sort of fusion of the data to decide what's going-on ... the algorithms could interesting ! ... ??
                      Our self-build - going further with HA...

                      Comment

                      • toscal
                        Moderator
                        • Oct 2005
                        • 2061

                        #26
                        Air movement or pressure sensing works in an unoccupied house, and detects the small changes in pressure when a door or window is then opened. But I'm not too sure it would work in an occupied house.
                        One question with the bluetooth idea, would you be able to identify the person from it. rather than just knowing someone is there. The only way I can see this working is if each person is assigned a pincode, and use this to register the device when it comes in range. But can a dongle cope with multiple pin numbers. Some BT software can distinguish what type of device is connected. My wife's pc knows when my Nokia N73 is connected to it or if its my wife's samsung. So as long as you all had different phones then you could do it that way. Why not use BT headsets, like the ones that clip to your ear then by using speech recognition, via the headset, you could identify the person.

                        To answer karam's question this is why 4 or more dongles are needed.

                        I still think RFID is the way forward. As some of the tags can also store info on them. So you could store the user's settings on the tag. And when the tag is read at the door it reads the settings and acts accordingly. I know this could also be done via a central computer, but it is possible you may run out of memory in the controller if you have a lot of people.
                        IF YOU CAN'T FIX IT WITH A HAMMER, YOU'VE GOT AN ELECTRICAL PROBLEM.
                        Renovation Spain Blog

                        Comment

                        • ajaxuk
                          Automated Home Jr Member
                          • Oct 2008
                          • 17

                          #27
                          Thanks Kevin for this writeup, I followed it all the way through and have pretty much got it working, with a couple of little hiccups along the way.

                          I couldn't install xFx Express Hub on my Windows 2000 Laptop, I use this as my always on cortex server. The error during install kept saying something about the username / password not being correct although it didn't give me an opportunity to type in the account details.

                          Instead I used Patrick Lidstone's hub and that worked fine and enabled me to see the messages in Cortex.

                          I am using the xAP weather app, which gets the weather info from a specified NASA weather station (Cambridge in my case) and then following the instructions I can see the temperature (TempC) appear on the DFP display. However, the Weather app doesn't appear to update and just keeps sending out the same data from when it first starts up. I haven't spent any time investigating since I had to go to work, but has anyone got any ideas?
                          I don't think it's a Cortex issue so this may be the wrong place to post.

                          Comment

                          • Kevin
                            Moderator
                            • Jan 2004
                            • 558

                            #28
                            Originally posted by ajaxuk View Post
                            Instead I used Patrick Lidstone's hub and that worked fine and enabled me to see the messages in Cortex.
                            Hmm - Do you have .Net installed on the W2K machine... anyway regardless Patricks hub will pass just about any xAP message including the newer xAP v1.3 ones.

                            Originally posted by ajaxuk View Post
                            I am using the xAP weather app, which gets the weather info from a specified NASA weather station (Cambridge in my case) and then following the instructions I can see the temperature (TempC) appear on the DFP display. However, the Weather app doesn't appear to update and just keeps sending out the same data from when it first starts up. I haven't spent any time investigating since I had to go to work, but has anyone got any ideas?
                            I don't think it's a Cortex issue so this may be the wrong place to post.
                            I think it would be best to post this on the xAP list where James will see it (author xAP Weather). The fact that on launch the application has managed to read your first weather info implies it is parsing the feed correctly. I don't know how often the data is updated on the NASA sourced info - have you tried a BBC feed as well ?

                            Kevin

                            Comment

                            • ajaxuk
                              Automated Home Jr Member
                              • Oct 2008
                              • 17

                              #29
                              Originally posted by Kevin View Post
                              Hmm - Do you have .Net installed on the W2K machine... anyway regardless Patricks hub will pass just about any xAP message including the newer xAP v1.3 ones.

                              I think it would be best to post this on the xAP list where James will see it (author xAP Weather). The fact that on launch the application has managed to read your first weather info implies it is parsing the feed correctly. I don't know how often the data is updated on the NASA sourced info - have you tried a BBC feed as well ?

                              Kevin
                              I have .Net 2.0 installed, but keep getting the following error message:

                              "Error 1001. The account name is invalid or does not exist, or the password is invalid for the account name specified."

                              but Patricks hub seems to be doing the trick so all's well that ends well


                              Not sure if it was a problem with the NASA site or a problem at my end but I have switched to the BBC site and everything now appears to work flawlessly.

                              It is so helpful to be able to glance at the panel and see what sort of temperature it is outside. Even my wife had to admit that it is useful!

                              Thanks for the help.

                              Mark

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X