I wanted to start dabbling in presence sensors to trigger lighting, but we have two cats as well. I've read mixed reviews on how good presence sensors are with being able to distinguish pets. Are there any recommended ones that would work to ignore cats and only trigger for people?
#MMWave/Presence Sensors and Pets
magic wind
turbid elm
I wanted to start dabbling in presence sensors to trigger lighting, but we have ...
some have some extra stuff to try and tell the difference but as you say results are mixed at best. realistically you are not currently able to reliably tell the difference between human and cat with mmwave.
depending on your exact use case and setup you might be able to work around the issue a bit but its not an exact science.
magic wind
some have some extra stuff to try and tell the difference but as you say results...
Yeah, trying to figure out how best to make this work, it's just for setting up turning on lights at night
If I assumed that the people always had a phone on them, then I could set up Bluetooth sensors or something equivalent to detect them entering a room I've read, but not everyone takes their phone with them to get a glass of water from the fridge at night
turbid elm
Yeah, trying to figure out how best to make this work, it's just for setting up ...
some ideas:
you could potentially set up sensors adjusted up slightly. this would mean they would only detect stuff say 1 meter off the ground? assuming your humans are above 1 meter and your cats don't jump around on stuff this might be a solution.
although you might suffer from detections through the ceiling to people on the floor above as mmwave can go through stuff.
you could use something less sensitive to switch on the light but use the mmwave to keep it on. using something like an adjustable PIR sensor would detect a human coming in but not a cat. but if human stands still it would loose detection. so you could use pir to trigger on then use mmwave to switch off when cleared. downside of this would be if you walk into a room that the cat is also in the light may remain on until the cat also leaves
magic wind
some ideas:
you could potentially set up sensors adjusted up slightly. this woul...
Yeah I thought about that too. They like to jump on things so the 1m wouldn't work.
I'm starting to wonder if cameras with ai recognition are the only way to do this
turbid elm
I'm starting to wonder if cameras with ai recognition are the only way to do thi...
yeah was just about to say that another solution is to use a camera and run object detection and have a human detected sensor to trigger from
magic wind
Yeah, I haven't looked into this much
Not sure what kind of setup it would need or how much it would cost
Esp if I want it to be entirely local processing
turbid elm
its not too difficult using frigate. supported camera/coral tpu/on system with some kind of graphics processing (integrated fine)
what server hardware do you currently have?
magic wind
It's a nuc, let me pull up the specs but it's running some Ryzen CPU and 16gb of ram I think
5500u 16gb ddr4 500gb ssd
With proxmox
turbid elm
so you could spin up an LXC on proxmox with docker on then install frigate on it.
you would need a TPU. a USB coral would do the job.
frigate requires some kind of graphics processing device. i imagine the built in ryzen will be fine and there will be a way to set frigate to use it. you would just need to add it as a resource for the LXC. (i have only done this with intel device but i cant imagine its too much of an issue)
then you just need a camera. something from reolink would be my suggestion (there is a home assistant supported list in the integration documentation)
i have this sort of setup with a n150 beelink mini pc although i use an internal m.2 coral instead of usb
magic wind
I'll probably go that route, but it definitely sounds a bit pricier, I'll have to research. Let me see if my nuc has an additional m 2 slot
turbid elm
tbh i recomend using a USB tpu
the internal one can be a bit messy with drivers but the usb one tends to work easily
magic wind
Yeah, it doesn't have an extra m2 anyway
magic wind
https://a.co/d/iKnrmGx so this for a tpu
And need to look into the reolink cameras
Not sure about cameras in the bathroom though lol
But everywhere else that would probably work
turbid elm
yeah cameras in bathrooms is a tricky one, it would all be local but its still a bit strange. specially if you have guests.
magic wind
Yeah, exactly lol
turbid elm
for bathroom there are other options, sensors on door/lock
nothing is perfect but there are various solutions most likely
magic wind
Yeah, just evaluating options, this seems like the most likely to work
turbid elm
btw, a note about frigate. if you use proxmox helper scripts DO NOT use the frigate one. its outdated and installs old verion with problems. use the docker script then just install frigate on that with compose
magic wind
Will keep that in mind, thanks
turbid elm
you can definitely get cheaper basic cameras as long as they support generic ipcam protocols and are not locked to some Chinese cloud server (e.g. tuya) however reolink stuff is solid and has some more features
another basic idea is weight sensors too. depending on your floor setups you could maybe integrate floor sensors. which you could calibrate to ignore a cat
then use mmwave to hold light on
magic wind
Weight sensors would be hard with the wood flooring
turbid elm
this is one of those things when building a smart home that there is 1000 solutions but you just gotta find the one that works for you
magic wind
I feel like ai detection
turbid elm
in theory if you can lift it you could put a FSR under it but that depends on your exact setup
object detection is going to be one of the better solutions yeah
magic wind
Sorry, that was a half response, it seems like ai detection is the best way in my instance. It was either that or Bluetooth collars with presence sensors
That way if presence detects movement it checks if the Bluetooth collar is in the vicinity, but then you could have the collar in the same room as a person and it would see it's a false
turbid elm
there are some people in my house that i track via their smart watches using bluetooth. and its not the most reliable thing in the world tbh
magic wind
Yeah, I didn't think so either
turbid elm
you can get strong microchip scanners which you could put on a door which would detect a cats microchip. farmers use them for tracking livestock movement in and out of barns/gates etc... but they are not erm... discrete for home use... they wont exactly blend in easily.
magic wind
Yeah, just need to spend some time looking at reolink cameras
Will have to figure out how many I want to start with and placement
turbid elm
i have a E1 Outdoor Pro but thats probably more than you need
I would start by looking at the known working list here - https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/reolink/#tested-models
magic wind
E1 pro is what I was looking at
How far does yours have accurate prediction distance wise @turbid elm ?
Or sorry recognition distance
turbid elm
How far does yours have accurate prediction distance wise <@354452014068924428> ...
frigate is pretty good at a pretty long distance. but i guess it depends on the camera
magic wind
Yeah, you have an e1 outdoor pro, I'm assuming similar camera ish to the indoor variant?
turbid elm
unless you have a seriously big house i suspect it will be fine detecting across a room
you can have it detect cats separately to humans too if you want to
turbid elm
there was a person a while ago that had an issue that when a cat sat on a chair in a particular way it detected as human. its rare but strange things can happen
magic wind
One offs are fine lol
turbid elm
yeah you will get the occasional false posative but for something like automated lights thats not a huge issue
magic wind
quick question, the google coral TPU I linked for 130, is that about inline with the price for them?
turbid elm
quick question, the google coral TPU I linked for 130, is that about inline with...
what currency? I think they are usually in the 60-80 GBP in the UK.