BT_Sentry Introduction

mcb1

30 Apr 2018

BT_SENTRY

My plan for the BlueTooth Unleashed Challenge is to use it to provide an addition to Home Automation.

Concept

The idea is to detect the bluetooth transmitted from the vehicle and signal other Home Automation functions.

If the vehicle is known then it can open the garage door, and inform the home owner that xx is home.

If the system doesn't recognise the vehicle, it can :-

trigger a survelliance camera to record video and take snapshots.
turn on the outside lights
inform the houseowner that they have visitors
Send a notification to a smartphone

This system also can record when someone visited and for how long, which may prove useful if they have been up to no good.

Background

I live in the country and we have a shared driveway, and then a long (by normal standards) driveway to the house.

When we first moved in, it was open paddocks, and you could see anyone coming into the properties. Now that the trees and shrubs have grown, there is no visibility of incoming vehicles.

Being forewarned about who is coming up the driveway, gives you a few minutes to get sorted before they knock on the door.

Because we aren't always at home, having a method to capture pictures of incoming vehicles at least allows you to know what and when someone may have visited.

There are legitimate visitors during the day, but there also some others that could be opportunistic with less than desirable reasons for visiting the property.

Why Bluetooth

I've thought about driveway monitors before, and while they can signal that the beam has been broken, it really tells you nothing more.

You're unable to tell what direction or if it was indeed a vehicle, or some loose stock that broke the beam.

Bluetooth monitoring is used in NZ to predict travel times. The local transport agency sniffs the MAC address of vehicles going past and then matches that with the next detection point to build up an average travel time.

It is entirely based on history, so can be several hours ago, but people seem happier to have a figure for their journey time, regardless of the accuracy.

This idea uses the same method of snooping the MAC address, but for known vehicles we can add other functionality.

Hardware

The detection point needs to be at the start of the driveway, and because there is no power source, this will need to be low power with solar charging.

The PSOC range seems a very good fit, but because of the timeline and my need to upskill, the inital design will be Arduino based and some form of RF transmitter/transceiver.

Adding a vehicle detection loop or beam is necessary to ensure those vehicles without bluetooth will also trigger the system.

The camera is intended to be a RaspberryPi which will be performing the receiving signal, along with storing the database of known vehicles, and the appropriate response (ie lights, gargage door, announcement)

Depending on the field tests the RPi could also be doing the Bluetooth detection as well (I prefer to avoid picking up the neighbours movements)

This will be housed in an outdoor light fitting, so as to appear normal.

Consideration for the antenna needs to be made as most of these fittings are metal.

This was another done in an earlier challenge, and gives the idea, however I plan to use a version with lots of LEDs (similar to the one below) and swap out some LED's for IR and remove others to allow the camera to be mounted.

So my Hero board will be the Raspberry Pi 3 B+

but I will try to use the Cypress PSOC6 which I purchased earlier

Software

I've used UV4L https://www.linux-projects.org/uv4l/ for a rear view camera Rear View Camera ver 2.0 , and this has a great advantage of allowing streaming to an indoor server as well as simple control over images.

I expect there will be some python scripts to process the incoming trigger information, as well as passing on relevant information to the internal system for storing and notifying the house occupants.

I've used OpenHAB https://www.openhab.org/ during an earlier challenge, and it lent itself to very powerful control and can easily communicate using NodeRed https://nodered.org/ for switching the outdoor lighting.

This also allows control via phone to switch the lights on/off as required, so it has other uses.

I can also use something like ITTT https://ifttt.com/ to push a notification out to a smartphone/email, etc that a visitor is there.

I imagine the bulk of my time will be integrating, testing and refining the various software parts, as the hardware is fairly straight forward. .... BUT this is a Design Challenge and things are never what they seem.

The RedBear BLE board I looked at and tried ordering is a restricted item into NZ, so forward planning and a plan is a must for these.

Design Challenge Blogs and Why Challengers Must Post - Upcycle it - Progress Week 3

I've been twarted on my electronic picture of tying it all together, but the pen still works, and the 'Whitelines" paper https://www.whitelinespaper.com/ seemed a really good way to convey it.