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Is there really a need for battery-based sensors in the home beyond windows and doors?

user4517

I am in the process of completing a Fuel Oil Tank sensor for my home. I originally worked on code to maximize battery life assuming the need to have a battery, but recently realized I could just implement a USB power converter near the oil tank to feed the sensor. It made me wonder what sensors would require battery support over low voltage direct cable. Here is a list of sensors I believe would not require batteries, and after that list which one's would need batteries. I would enjoy hearing feedback on my list and your perceptions on use of batteries in home sensors.

Don't need batteries:

1 Appliance sensors, including plugs, lights, switches, kitchen appliances, water heater, laundry appliances, HVAC, overall power monitoring and water monitoring.

2. Human location and environmental sensors, including PIM or room movement, environmental (air/gas, temp, level of light, etc.). Also, mmWave sensing for GPS like functionality in the home.

3. Security camaras for outside house where the camaras are mounted on the house (Wi-Fi and POE). In-house camaras that are mounted in the ceiling or in entertainment\computer devices.

Do need batteries:

1. Stand-alone camaras for in-house (Naney cams, or other hidden cameras) Note: many room camera could be connected to existing entertainment or computer devices in a room eliminating the need for batteries

2. External disconnected cameras and environmental sensors (weather stations), and other remote monitoring for security or eventing.

3. Human wearable devices

as you can see the list of Do not need is extensive and the need for most of the do need are limited use, with the only exception being wearable devices.

Let me know what you think.

Pat

Parents

  • Security devices need to stay powered in the event of power outage, battery power or battery back up is a good solution. A ups on the wifi is also a good idea to keep the home network alive for battery powered devices during outages. 

  • in reply to robogary

    Forgive me for telling this story again, but I had my network on a UPS - only to find out that the ISP didn't have backup power in my neighborhood.
    Small power backup for riding through power blips is still a good idea.  If you have cellular internet... different story.

  • in reply to kmikemoo

    Here we've been lucky for a while in some ways, because most home Internet tends to come via phone lines (versus cable, which is probably more popular in the US I believe), and traditionally phone lines had to stay up legally all year round, only allowed 6 minutes of unscheduled down-time per year, and I believe therefore the line cards were powered from the same backed up sources as for voice-only line cards. Of course, none of this helped if there was a storm which destroyed lines for instance. I'm not super-knowledgeable on this residential side of things though, so I may have got it wrong. Anyway, things have changed a lot now. I'm looking to move to higher-speed fibre Internet (still deciding which provider, and which speed option).

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  • in reply to kmikemoo

    Here we've been lucky for a while in some ways, because most home Internet tends to come via phone lines (versus cable, which is probably more popular in the US I believe), and traditionally phone lines had to stay up legally all year round, only allowed 6 minutes of unscheduled down-time per year, and I believe therefore the line cards were powered from the same backed up sources as for voice-only line cards. Of course, none of this helped if there was a storm which destroyed lines for instance. I'm not super-knowledgeable on this residential side of things though, so I may have got it wrong. Anyway, things have changed a lot now. I'm looking to move to higher-speed fibre Internet (still deciding which provider, and which speed option).

Children
  • in reply to shabaz

    With ADSL it was more robust as the copper went back to the exchange and the exchange provided the power for the analogue phones. If the power took out the town then it would only be a short outage before they switched to generator (or were prioritised for mobile generator) and then your phones and Internet came back.

    With VDSL though, your Internet got moved onto fiber at the roadside cab which wasn't backed up by generator supply. So town-wide outage and you had landline but not Internet.

    With PSTN now going, then landline moves to VOIP and onto fibre at the roadside cab. So town-wide outage and you have no landline and no Internet.

    No backup to mobile phone networks so basically a complete communications failure when you are most likely to need it. Apparently they call this progress...

    Not sure about fibre to the home though - I suspect there are repeaters in the roadside cabinets so they will likely fail with a town-wide power outage.