Telemetry and sensors.

[ericmark]

Not really looking for an alarm, but I do want to know what is going on. Mother is an amputee and also with early signs of dementia. The council have fitted telecare which is driving me mad.



Today my mother got out of bed for over an hour before 6am so the call centre was alerted. They phoned my mother but withheld the caller ID so her phone never rang. They then called my mobile but the car blue tooth was still active so it rang in the car. They then phoned my wife who relayed message to me so I drove 15 miles because they said she was out of bed and not answering phone. In essence two people woke up and 15 miles driven because call centre had caller ID turned off. Not amused.



I am setting up internet with the idea of using a pet cam to see if she is OK but clearly can’t use it in bedroom or toilet. So it would be better to have door sensors, and PIR’s so there is some indication as to which room she is in and if moving with maybe a sound link only.



However I need some device to collect the info and send to me. Alarm panels may do this job? I remember installing OBAS 16 years ago and even then there was built in telemetry.



So what are my options today?

 

[bernardgreen]

First of all explain to the call centre that some of their clients have telephones that will not respond to calls with caller number withhelds. Strictly speaking the number should be withheld to prevent it bcoming common knowledge which would be a security loophole. There used to be an intercept system where the phone did answer caller number withheld calls and then expected a tone sequence to validate the number withheld call was from the control room. If the correct tone sequence was not received the phone was hung up without ringing the client's telephone.

If the person is at risk then that risk exists in all rooms and while privacy in bedroom and toilet is desirable there has to be an evaluation of the conflict between privacy and the need to see if an accident has occured in the bedroom or toilet. Movement sensors could switch of the camera while the person is in the room and moving which should provide adequate privacy but allow viewing if the person is not moving. Either in bed asleep ( modesty provided by bedclothes ) or collapsed ( when modesty has to be ignored ).

 

[ericmark]

Theory says heat sensors can work out which room is occupied but in practice one has to find a product to do the job at of course a reasonable price. I see an avert for "Texecom Veritas Reflex PIR Detectors Motion Sensor Burglar Alarm Movement Heat" but to me it means nothing. If I can detect body heat then I can see where my mother is.

The other idea is a wireless device to see if my mother is in her wheel chair. If see is in the chair then no problems, so three devices one for wheel chair one for easy chair and one for bed would be great. If in any one then all OK and if non activated then one assumes she is on the floor.

 

[bernardgreen]

Passive infra red, as apposed to visibly light, cameras will provide a featureless image of the room. A person will appear as a person shaped "blob" and no embarrasing details will be visible. The same can be achieved by "fuzzing" or pixilating the image from a normal camera.

One advantage of passive IR cameras is that they will show the position of a person by their body heat when the room is in total darkness. Provided they and the transmission path have back up power they will operate during a power cut which is when a vulnerable person is at greatest risk.

 

[sparkymarka]

Old fashion pressure mats , we did a job a few years ago when a bed ridden OAP kept falling out of the bed , so a pressure mat was installed to tell his wife via the alarm when this had happened ! Worked a treat

 

[ericmark]

Hopefully today I will be able to install step one. An IT camera which will show what is going on in the living room and also allow me to hear any sounds. I have decided delaying fitting stage one in hope of finding better is not a good idea. I would hope in a power cut the fact I can't view camera will alert me there is something wrong but using some form of UPS would clearly be better.

That still leaves kitchen, hall, and bedroom uncovered and some cheap alarm panel able to send info over the internet with sensors connected to it does seem the way to cover rest of the house.

I am told with held numbers will no longer be used my monitoring station so the problem of mums phone not ringing should be cured. There is still an issue that the call centre's unit is connected to the phone line with three other phones in parallel so knocking a phone off the hook will cause the system to fail. I am sure this is due to incorrect wiring there is a in and out on the monitor I am sure all phones should be wired to the out of that monitor.

However should I not respond then the monitoring station will call emergency services so better my system is an as well not an instead.

So first hurdle is what panel? I have many times written programs for PLC's and to write a program to say if bed sensor is activated all is OK, or if easy chair sensor activated all is OK, or if toilet beam is broken all is OK. But where it becomes more of a problem is the wheel chair. The chair can't be hard wired it would need some RF link now battery life is important so it needs send every so many minutes in a similar way to a central heating thermostat and sense if wheel chair is in use.

There also needs to be a delay so alarm will not be sent as my mother is transferring only if a new sensor is not activated within 10 minutes.

So need:-
A box of tricks to combine everything.
Two weight activated switches one for bed and one for chair.
One beam breaking sensor for toilet.
One RF linked sensor for chair.
One leaving house switch to deactivate system when mother leaves the house.

If the box of tricks is not internet linked then also something to give that link.

So for me the problem area is:-
Internet linking.
Sending message from wheel chair.
And to lesser extent the sensor to show some one is sitting on the toilet the sensors I know are rather expensive.

I can direct chair and bed and toilet sensors to a PLC I already have and use timers to extend the times to cover change over from one device to the other. It is the wheel chair sensor which is the major stumbling block. Even the internet I can place PLC near the camera and so read the LED's although better if info auto sent so wheel chair is the major problem.

So ideas about how to sense that the wheel chair is in use please. Plus any other ideas of course.

 

[sparkymarka]

Sat in ? Pressure mat to a wireless transmitter ( battery operated )

 

[ericmark]

First stage IP camera fitted. It took me hours to get it working. It was rather a simple fault it needed 8 digits for the password and I was using 6 but it points out the problems with wireless links. Also my radio using 50% transmit to receive will last around 3 hours on a battery, OK it's 2W and don't need that much but to get a reasonable battery life one needs to only transmit changes not continuous monitoring.

Theory is easy practice is something else. I need products to do the job. Be it a wireless thermostat that can be altered or a model plane remote I need to find the actual products which will do the job. The carelink uses a wireless transmitter but it's plugged in 24/7 what happens if unplugged I don't know but can hardly use a mains lead to sensor on a wheel chair. Looking for products to do the job.

 

[bernardgreen]

Eric

I have sent you a PM

 

[ericmark]

Well the IP cam has been set up. It did have a glitch where no assess, but had some caller ID problems, so I assume the glitch was related to open reach fixing the caller ID.

My son seems to think Arduino is the way forward, but as it is I am rather green as to how to program, and not sure if I can develop the skill required. Sensor is a minor problem, but major one is sending the information between the houses.