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HomeHack: Roommate dorm detector

Made by Yoon Young Kim

I want it to help facilitate communication of the shared space. My Home hack project aims to expedite automatic and quick communication between roommates for the occupation of the dorm room. Rather than having to reach out to each other or having to go out of one’s way to let each other know, my product acknowledge the presence of a roommate in the room. This way, I can let my roommate enjoy her free time in the dorm without worrying about any intrusions.

Created: February 1st, 2017

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Problem Solving

  •  Introduce who you are designing for, how they could benefit from an IoT appliance and why you chose this person and the problem

  • My IoT home hack product aims to bridge communication between roommates in a dorm setting. As someone who lives in an on-campus dorm with a roommate, I found that finding private time in a shared space can be difficult. Sometimes it is a hindrance to message my roommate asking whether she was in the room or not and then waiting for her reply (she’s slow at responding, too). Always having to manually notify my roommate would be annoying too. I know a lot of my floormates in my dorm face the same issue of oftentimes being disturbed by their roommates. In order to solve this problem I created this Home Hack that would ultimately communicate when roommates are in or out of the room, preventing any miscommunications or unnecessary messaging. In order to prevent any disturbances, my Home Hack can effectively bridge student roommates together. As a student who lives in a dorm setting, I personally think it is useful and helpful to know when a roommate is in or out of the room since a dorm is a shared space.


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Goal

  • What kind of solution are you trying to create and why? How does it address the problem. Explain in as few words as possible:

  • I want it to help facilitate communication of the shared space. My Home hack project aims to expedite automatic and quick communication between roommates for the occupation of the dorm room. Rather than having to reach out to each other or having to go out of one’s way to let each other know, my product acknowledge the presence of a roommate in the room. This way, I can let my roommate enjoy her free time in the dorm without worrying about any intrusions. I wouldn’t want to enter in the dorm room when my roommate is chilling with her friends nor does my roommate want to bother me while I am napping.

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Process

Outline your approach to the project? What ideas did you generate and how did you refine or reject them? What did you research and explore? what were the design choices? What challenges were encountered and how did you resolve them?

  • Challenges

    • Button to switch

      • Initially I was going to use a button for my input and then use a microphone as a sensor to collect sound data. As I began working through the project, I changed to a switch for my input and then a PIR sensor to collect any movement. I thought these changes would be appropriate because a switch would keep the PIR sensor on and will then shut off depending on when the user flips the switch.

    • Getting the code to work

      • Because of my lack of experience and skill with coding, writing up the code was definitely a challenge. I tried my best to base my code off something simple learned on the tutorials and make the necessary changes to make my prototype work.

    • Connecting to the internet

      • Towards the end I realized my Home Hack was not yet an IoT product if I did not have a way to access the collected data and information from my product. I tried multiple ways to figure out how to access the information, such as using the Pushbutton app or sending email notifications, and figured that using Particle.Publish would probably be the best to keep track of live updated information. Although the internet logging is quite messy, it gets the job done. 

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Outcome

Detail what you created. What methods or techniques did you use? What tools and technologies were involved? Include images, code or video.

The final outcome resulted in the dorm setting with the product set up by the doorway so that the user can easily switch the device on and off as he or she walks in and out of the room. I would say the prototype has accomplished the fundamental components in executing its intended task and function. To take this project further, I think the next step is to improve the presentation of the product and the additional streamlining of the product’s use. 

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Reflection

Reflect on the process of making this project. What did you learn? What would you do differently?

  • As someone who has zero coding experience, I learned how to apply basic arduino coding and prototyping skills to create this project. I created the code for my Home Hack by combining multiple different codes from the Particle tutorials such as the switch input tutorial, the PIR sensor tutorial, and the basic LED circuit tutorial.

  • Although my product reports any movement, the PIR sensor may not always be accurate and sometimes tracks movement when there is nothing presented in front of it.

  • If I had to do this project differently, I would definitely make the components more integrative with the room. Currently the switch is stuck to a photon board that I taped to the side of the closet.

  • It would be better if the switch was actually integrated with the light switch, that way the user won’t have to flip two different switches when entering the room. In addition, the messy jumper cables currently look very disorderly and unattractive. Hiding everything under some sort of designed container could improve the aesthetics of the product. If it were possible to place the PIR sensor in a more invisible location in the room so it was not so blatantly sticking out of the wall, perhaps the user won’t feel like they’re being watched. However, since jumper cables can only be so long, the distance between the sensor and the switch is limited. 

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int pirPin = D2;
int switchPin = D0;
int ledPin = D1;
int pirState = LOW;
int buttonState = LOW;

void setup()
{


  pinMode( switchPin , INPUT_PULLUP); // sets pin as input

  pinMode( pirPin , INPUT ); 

  pinMode ( ledPin, OUTPUT);

  Particle.variable ("buttonState", buttonState);
  Particle.variable("pirState", pirState);


}

void loop()
{
   // find out if the button is pushed
   // or not by reading from it.
  buttonState = digitalRead( switchPin );
  // Using a pulldown resistor we get a LOW
  // Signal when its on

  pirState = digitalRead( pirPin );

  if ( buttonState == HIGH)
  {

  if ( pirState == HIGH ) // when sensor is on, light turns on
  {
    digitalWrite( ledPin, HIGH);
  }else{
    digitalWrite( ledPin, LOW); // when sensor is off, light turns off
  }



Particle.publish ("Roommate In", String(buttonState));
delay (500);
Particle.publish ("Roommate activity", String(pirState));
delay (500);

}
}
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I want it to help facilitate communication of the shared space. My Home hack project aims to expedite automatic and quick communication between roommates for the occupation of the dorm room. Rather than having to reach out to each other or having to go out of one’s way to let each other know, my product acknowledge the presence of a roommate in the room. This way, I can let my roommate enjoy her free time in the dorm without worrying about any intrusions.