Home | Contacts | Staff | Projects | Publications

Living Room -project

The basic idea is to design and construct electronic devices that a user could not perceive, until he would actually use them. This means that they should be small in size, use wireless communication, have low power consumption (i.e. be battery powered) and visually difficult to detect.

The living room, which is used as a testing platform, has no windows, hence the need for artificial lighting with halogens and fluorescent lights. The room is about 6x6 metres in size.

So far the following prototypes have been constructed:

Plant watering monitor

This gadget senses the water level in the water tank/ moisture in the flower pot and sends this data to the PC. The user can then monitor the plant and water it if necessary.

Motorised curtain

The curtain can be operated either by a traditional switch on the wall or from the PC. Possibly it will be made automatic, so it would sense the outdoor light level and raise or lower accordingly. More information >>

Intelligent lock

The electric lock is based on identification of the user. Once the user has been identified and approved, the PC can tell the lock to get ready to open the door. When the user grabs the handle the lock opens, and the user can open the door and walk in. Further development of this idea would to know which persons are currently inside the room.

Controllable halogen lights

The room has 22 controllable halogen lights, each can be given a light value of 0-255, 0 indicating the light is off and 255 indicating full intensity. With the help of floor sensors (see below) the PC can adjust the lighting in the room dynamically, for example lighting areas where the person is walking. More information >>

Graphical user interface

Home equipment control is centralized. The coffee table is equipped with a small PC and a touch screen. All equipments can be controlled using a graphical user interface in it. This user interface, a windows based program, is made using MS Visual Basic. In the future this centralized user interface is going to be web based.

Identification of the inhabitant

The wine bottle rack measures the temperature of the bottles and the number of bottles placed in the rack. The rack can be locked, and later checked whether bottles have been taken or replaced. The user can be identified with an infrared tag, and different users can be offered personalised user interfaces. More information >>

Air quality measurement

The quality of the air in the home is measured with several different sensors. With the help of this information the system can control the air conditioning, heating and create an alarm if the situation so requires. By placing sensors in different locations we can cover the entire home. More information >>

Floor sensors

The floor has eight built-in EMFi-sensors, developed by VTT. Information can be gathered with these sensors where a person is standing in the room and possibly for example adjusts lighting levels accordingly.

All units consist of a Microcontroller (Atmel's AT90S1200 or AT90S2333), an internal 6V battery, an IR transceiver and appropriate electronic components.

The main IR HUB (which sends all commands issued by the PC via IR to the appropriate device) is connected to a PC via serial link, and the user can monitor and change the status of all devices from there. Also a single-chip RF transceiver solution is tested to replace the bulky IR-devices. RF transmission would be much handier since it does not require direct line of sight, the devices are smaller and consume less power.

The controlling PC can be a normal desktop model, a laptop or a smaller handheld version with a touch-sensitive LCD display. The user interface will be a www-page, allowing visual interpretation of the room and extensive control and monitoring of all devices in the room.

Living Room Webcam

Video

Home | Contacts | Staff | Projects | Publications