During snowstorm Nemo I had the distinct pleasure of hanging out in a house that had to hover around 48 degrees to conserve heating oil. A side effect of the apartment collectively forgetting to check our fuel levels until they were dangerously low. During a walk home I was inspired by random thoughts to start sketching out a device that could help people avoid this issue happening. The product I suggest is relatively straight forward as an initial platform, but with some revision could turn into quite a flexible home automation technology. Connecting a low cost camera system to a micro-controller with a wi-fi or ethernet routing module would allow home users to place a smart device next to their home fuel meters to allow for automatic updates on their energy use. In the rather crude drawing below you can see the sensor assembly placed near a fuel gauge with a plain background placed behind it (that is to help the camera read as readily as possible).
A really basic set up from a software approach to this technology would be to have a single piece smart package that customers would purchase. After buying the package a customer would do a one time plug in set up where they connected their home smart sensor to any screened device with a USB port to provide a window for inputting information like, the name of the home WiFi network, network password if necessary, the user's email(s), and a specified frequency of how often they would like to be updated on system readings. After set-up clients should be able to more or less ignore that their physical device exists and wait for updates on the systems operation. As the necessary technologies get cheaper, users or service providers could even start to train the micro-controller to identify on its own when it would need to alert users when critical changes were happening to the system ex. fuel levels are getting critically low.
With the right APIs integrated into the system it would be possible to design the platform so that it would automatically order more heating oil (or whatever service it was connected to) from a designated service provider. If the components became cheap enough it might be reasonable for companies like heating oil providers to distribute these smart systems to customers to allow for smarter predictions of service demand over time. As the base system is relying on simple visual reads off of a webcam, it would be fairly reasonable to see later adaptations that made it possible to attach sensors like these to natural gas and electrical meters. (I'm well aware of smart meters already in existence, the intent of this platform is to provide a way to add greater sensing ability to legacy hardware that might be too expensive to replace or not allow for retrofitting as a result of aesthetic/historic concerns)
Another potential application of a technology like this could be for management of liquid wastes like cooking oil. Smart sensors in the grease collectors would allow collecting services to work automatically, increasing productivity and customer satisfaction.
Technology like this might help keep an eye on elderly family members while minimizing the invasion of privacy. Concerned relatives could put simple sensors on the home heating, refrigerator, and some critical lights, the mesh could start to identify points of concern (crap I think this originally came from Microsoft's smart home initiative, oh well)
Feb 1: Well son of a be sting, it looks some MIT alumni have developed a very different approach to the idea I was proposing. Their device apparently measures the energy performance of a home's heating system.
A really basic set up from a software approach to this technology would be to have a single piece smart package that customers would purchase. After buying the package a customer would do a one time plug in set up where they connected their home smart sensor to any screened device with a USB port to provide a window for inputting information like, the name of the home WiFi network, network password if necessary, the user's email(s), and a specified frequency of how often they would like to be updated on system readings. After set-up clients should be able to more or less ignore that their physical device exists and wait for updates on the systems operation. As the necessary technologies get cheaper, users or service providers could even start to train the micro-controller to identify on its own when it would need to alert users when critical changes were happening to the system ex. fuel levels are getting critically low.
With the right APIs integrated into the system it would be possible to design the platform so that it would automatically order more heating oil (or whatever service it was connected to) from a designated service provider. If the components became cheap enough it might be reasonable for companies like heating oil providers to distribute these smart systems to customers to allow for smarter predictions of service demand over time. As the base system is relying on simple visual reads off of a webcam, it would be fairly reasonable to see later adaptations that made it possible to attach sensors like these to natural gas and electrical meters. (I'm well aware of smart meters already in existence, the intent of this platform is to provide a way to add greater sensing ability to legacy hardware that might be too expensive to replace or not allow for retrofitting as a result of aesthetic/historic concerns)
Another potential application of a technology like this could be for management of liquid wastes like cooking oil. Smart sensors in the grease collectors would allow collecting services to work automatically, increasing productivity and customer satisfaction.
Technology like this might help keep an eye on elderly family members while minimizing the invasion of privacy. Concerned relatives could put simple sensors on the home heating, refrigerator, and some critical lights, the mesh could start to identify points of concern (crap I think this originally came from Microsoft's smart home initiative, oh well)
Feb 1: Well son of a be sting, it looks some MIT alumni have developed a very different approach to the idea I was proposing. Their device apparently measures the energy performance of a home's heating system.
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