Motel Application

Posted on
Sun Aug 12, 2012 7:47 am
RKBerry offline
Posts: 1
Joined: Aug 12, 2012

Motel Application

Hello,

I'm searching for a system which I can set up at a small motel, which will record
room occupancies. I was thinking of a motion detector in each room and recording the
time and date of motion within each room. Is this possible using Indigo?

Thanks!

RKB

Posted on
Sun Aug 12, 2012 2:21 pm
bschollnick2 offline
Posts: 1355
Joined: Oct 17, 2004
Location: Rochester, Ny

Re: Motel Application

RKBerry wrote:
I'm searching for a system which I can set up at a small motel, which will record
room occupancies. I was thinking of a motion detector in each room and recording the
time and date of motion within each room. Is this possible using Indigo?


In theory, but I'm not sure how practical it would be. You would either need multiple X10 transceivers (if you used X10 based Motion sensors)...

Or multiple Insteon RF units, or dual band units.... It really depends more on the physical layout, and if you were going to automate anything else...?

Now also keep in mind, this won't tell you anyone is in the room. You could detect a blind moving, the Warm or cold air of the heater / air conditioner.... And more importantly, a sleeping person won't trigger the detector...

- Benjamin

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Posted on
Sun Aug 12, 2012 8:55 pm
ryanbuckner offline
Posts: 1075
Joined: Oct 08, 2011
Location: Northern Virginia

Re: Motel Application

Determining occupancy is something we all struggle with. For a typical household it becomes easier because we know our schedules better. For instance, if my iPhone is home the house is occupied. But there are always loopholes (what if I forget my phone?). If there are 2 cars in the garage and the house is not in vacation mode, the house is most likely occupied. (what if we go for a walk?).

The key is to find a rule that works for you and see if the hardware / software / logic exists to get a reasonable level of certainty to make your use case viable. Indigo can do things like determine motion (but like Benjamin said, what if you're sleeping or in the shower?) If the room still occupied if there is motion every 12 hours? Maybe that would work. There are threads in this forum where someone used a pressure sensor under the mattress to determine if someone was in the bed. Does that solve the problem? Maybe? Is it cost effective for your needs? Only you know that answer.

From what I have seen in this forum, if you can determine the right situation, Indigo can support a method to determine whether those rules apply.

You should also consider connectivity. How large is your motel? You most likely will need a large set of access points to keep continuity across large spaces. Logically you'll need a lockbox on each one so customers don't walk off with them.

Most likely solutions include a combination of rules. Consider the locks on the doors. When the code is entered for the room, the door opens and *if* a motion sensor triggers in the room within a few seconds of the door opening, the room is most likely occupied. When the door opens again and *if* the motion sensor fails to trigger within a minute or so, the room is most likely not occupied. Again, lots of loopholes. What if my wife is in the shower and I leave to go pickup dinner? My rules are tripped up. So I add a motion sensor in the bathroom? What if she's sleeping and I go out for a burger? So I add compression pads to the bed?

Do you allow pets in your Motel? That makes things much harder...

Posted on
Thu Feb 19, 2015 7:46 pm
ryanbuckner offline
Posts: 1075
Joined: Oct 08, 2011
Location: Northern Virginia

Re: Motel Application

RKB, I'm curious if you ever came up with a solution to this problem?

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