IntelliLight - Adaptive Smart Bulb Controller - Part 1 - Welcome

31 Aug 2022

IntelliLight - Adaptive Smart Bulb Controller - Part 1 - Welcome

Introduction

Good evening and welcome to my project!

The challenge doesn't officially start until tomorrow, so I thought today I would just take the opportunity to introduce myself and the project.

My name is Owen and I was lucky enough to have been selected as one of the contestants in this year's "Summer of Sensors Design Challenge" under the category Exploration Station.

First I want to begin by saying a big Thank You to the team here at element14 for selecting my project. I am very excited to be taking part in this challenge along with the other contestants whose projects look very interesting. I am looking forward to following all of these projects and wish you all the best success. I hope that this project will be of interest to a few people out there and so I plan to make it educational and interesting and include as much detail as possible. If any of you have any questions, suggestions or advice along the way, please drop a comment on my blogs and I'll been more than glad to respond.

My plan for this project is to design and build an adaptive smart bulb controller using an ESP32, ambient light sensor and proximity sensor.

Abstract

Over the past 10 years or so, as the technology has become more available and ever more affordable, home automation has become increasingly popular. It started out as a dream for the average home owner or something from a Sci-Fy movie and was only realised in the luxurious estates of the wealthy home owner. Now, home automation is so affordable that it has been estimated that 70% of households in the US own at least one smart device (I don’t know if that number is accurate, but I found it on the internet, and the internet does not lie )

From 2014 onwards, homes across the world were being equipped with Amazon Echos, Google Nests and Samsung SmartThings to name but a few of the smart hubs which have riddled the technology stores around the world. To many, the Internet Of Things (IoT) was just a passing craze; it was a fad that would never materialise. However, today everyone has to admit that the IoT is no longer a handful of products build by a club of mad inventors in their bedrooms and garages. The IoT is here to stay. Sales of smart home products are perpetually increasing and dare I say, have dominated our homes.

Admittedly, not everyone's homes are so automated that their wheelie bins put themselves out every week and the carpets get cleaned over night by some magical elf-hoover, but many home-owners today will have purchased (or perhaps been gifted by their techy relative) the cheapest smart device just to see what all the craze was about - the smart-bulb.

Today perhaps people are a bit more money-conscious with the cost of living rapidly on the rise. They are starting to look after their pennies a bit more and maybe spending less on frivolities like smart devices. Or perhaps they cannot afford the fully-automated system requiring a smart hub, or maybe the thought of yet another magic white box with flashing lights in the corner of the room is a bit too overwhelming for them. Whatever the reason, for many people, the smart bulb is as far as their IoT itch has been scratched, and before too long, the novelty has worn off and it is often just popped in the standard lamp next to their reading chair and used as a regular light bulb. Finding the app among the dozens of other apps is not worth the hassle (if you could remember what it was called in the first place) or maybe you even uninstalled the app to make room for your grand-daughter’s Bluetooth-enabled dancing pony toy that she asked for last Christmas. So the smart-bulb just sits there, feeling very not-smart, with that annoying green hue that you happened to select before you lost the app.

This project is designed to be a cheap addition to those homes who haven't taken the leap of faith yet, for those people who have a smart bulb in their house but never really use it, and to give those people a little encouragement to step onto the IoT express – it doesn’t have to be an expensive, complicated or scary ride, and I’m here to prove that this summer.

Project Brief

To design and build an intuitive, low-cost and aesthetically-pleasing device to monitor the ambient light conditions around a standard lamp (i.e. reading light for non-Brits) and control the brightness and hue of a smart bulb to provide the best conditions to reduce power consumption and reduce eye strain.

Saving your eyes

In low-light conditions, the brightness of the bulb will be equalised in order to reduce eye tension. Likewise in bright ambient light, the brightness of the bulb will also be increased in order to fully illuminate the user's book, magazine or tablet that they are reading. This will be achieved using the ambient light sensor (ALS).

Saving power

Additionally, the proximity sensor (non-contact) will be used to detect when someone is sat next to the reading lamp. When a person sits down, the smart bulb will turn on. When they get up from the chair, the smart bulb will turn off again to save power.

Aims and Objectives

The aim of this project is to be:

Low cost: affordable by the audience identified above
Stand-alone: does not require a smart hub, smart phone, laptop or internet etc.
Convenient: easy to setup, operate and customise (if desired)
Eco: contribute to household power saving

The objectives of this project are threefold:

To save power by automatically turning on/off the light when required
To reduce eye tension by choosing the most suitable brightness for the ambient conditions
To inspire people to discover and realise low-cost, helpful IoT devices