• I have not abandoned this project...honest!

    RoboMonkey • 05/11/2017 at 18:49 • 0 comments

    So, many months later and what have I done?

    I used a Huzzah board from Adafruit and some temperature humidity sensors to monitor the pantry full size refrigerator and freezer. Why? Well I've noticed that in order to make refrigerators or freezers fit within the EnergyStar spec, they build them too close to their intended operating range to keep them working if they're left open. We lost the refrigerator about a year ago and my Spousal unit said "yeah, it's seemed warm in there for about a week now." Thankfully no one got sick from food going bad.

    So I decided to use this as an opportunity to build the first sensor set.

    The sensors are wired up to the single Huzzah board and use WiFi to send the data to my master server, a Rasp Pi that listens for the data stream. This stream is sent out and logged every 5 minutes. If the script detects a higher than anticipated temperature, it begins to alarm me with text messages and e-mails.

    Does it work? Too well. Shortly after I deployed it the system began alerting me about high temps in the refrigerator. I call home and get met with the information that she had just put away groceries and to stop calling home about this dumb project. When I got home, I pushed the door to the refrigerator FULLY closed, and the alarms stopped shortly thereafter.

    Works well enough to detect when she puts in a fresh pot of soup she just made.

    She hasn't failed to close the door since, BTW.

    I've had a couple of instances where the freezer door got propped open by an errant item, and it detected it and the calls to the house have been much less of a problem, though she still thinks I'm spying on her.

    So, what's next?

    I want to standardize the protocol for my units. I have the idea to add sensors throughout the house using ESP8266 units and make the data string they send to the master node give the node all the data about what the item is that's being monitored. This will include all alarm thresholds and messages to send so the master node is really just a reactionary e-mail server. Next item I want to tackle is my Whole house water softener salt level. This would alert me when it's low instead of the soap in the shower alerting me. That sensor pack would also eventually get water usage monitoring that would tie into the alarm system status to determine if the house has a water leak. If it does, the system would be instructed to notify me, and shut down the well pump.

    If I only had more time...

    build logs forthcoming.

  • sorry for the delay....

    RoboMonkey • 07/17/2015 at 12:34 • 0 comments

    I hope to pick this project up in the fall of 2016. I really want to do it, but priorities don't always track with what we'd like to do.