location services in Indigo

Absolutely must be local. I want to keep everything inside my administrative domain.

I’m hoping some company creates. Non-cloud-based product for this.

I'm hoping my boss doubles my salary tomorrow and lets me work half days. Not really expecting it though

I’m hoping some company creates. Non-cloud-based product for this.

I'm hoping my boss doubles my salary tomorrow and lets me work half days. Not really expecting it though

The application for your salary doubling and work being cut in half is zero.

The application for a system to provide facial identification is manifold and already exists in our phones.

I'm just not seeing the correlation here.

It’s not that absurd a hope, but i don’t blame you for your reaction.

The software on my Synology NAS does a pretty darn good job with facial recognition. Apple photos does it. Blue Iris and SecuritySpy both use haarcascades for face and person detection. Combining them isn’t that pie in the sky.

I’m hoping some company creates. Non-cloud-based product for this.

I'm hoping my boss doubles my salary tomorrow and lets me work half days. Not really expecting it though

The application for your salary doubling and work being cut in half is zero.

The application for a system to provide facial identification is manifold and already exists in our phones.

I'm just not seeing the correlation here.

The correlation is that they're both super unlikely.

I think the application for providing such a product that is non-cloud based and they can't harvest and sell all of your facial recognition data is also near zero. At least with a non-cloud based API.

Honestly, I hope I'm just wrong (that wouldn't be a first!). But it's harder and harder to even find a thermostat with an API that doesn't go through the cloud. Or sprinkler controller. And that data's probably worth a fraction of what facial recognition data is worth.

It’s not that absurd a hope, but i don’t blame you for your reaction.

The software on my Synology NAS does a pretty darn good job with facial recognition. Apple photos does it. Blue Iris and SecuritySpy both use haarcascades for face and person detection. Combining them isn’t that pie in the sky.

Yeah, you're right there. I guess in my mind I was visualizing some kind of standalone product that you would put in your room and provide an interface to get facial recognition data from. If Apple photos had the APIs, you'd pretty much be there if you could feed Security Spy stills from a camera in each room to Apple Photos and process the data appropriately.

Also, we really need to get this working now. I want to play a laugh track every time I enter a room in my house.

I'm just not seeing the correlation here.

The correlation is that they're both super unlikely.

One might hope for some causality here.

I think the application for providing such a product that is non-cloud based and they can't harvest and sell all of your facial recognition data is also near zero. At least with a non-cloud based API.

Honestly, I hope I'm just wrong (that wouldn't be a first!). But it's harder and harder to even find a thermostat with an API that doesn't go through the cloud. Or sprinkler controller. And that data's probably worth a fraction of what facial recognition data is worth.

Given that we are talking about Indigo here, I do think that we see better isolation due to using things like Z-Wave and Insteon to form a sandbox for devices. We have both Z-Wave and Insteon thermostats and sprinkler controllers for which there is no direct path to the IoT and hence off to someone else's data collection facility.

But this is a concern of mine. Right now Indigo manages 125 devices in my home. (I have a mix of predominantly Z-Wave, a lesser amount of Insteon, and a handful of IP/ethernet.) I have many other network-attached devices that Indigo does not control, e.g. networking components (routers, switches, APs), software-defined radios, computers, phones, tablets, printers, streaming video devices, etc. Devices over which I have no control of the firmware/software are always suspect. I have long suspected my Sony Bravia TVs (5) and AppleTVs (3) of being especially egregious. I have been using the application IoT Inspector from Princeton (https://iot-inspector.princeton.edu) to map these things. What I have learned is that I have good reason to be concerned.

The Sony TVs are strictly used as displays because I really don't trust Android but they are connected to the network (hard-wired Ethernet) so that Indigo can turn them on and off and switch the HDMI inputs. Regardless, they are chatting away with 7 different IP addresses out on the net even for things I just don't use or subscribe to. I use my AppleTVs for all my TV watching and they are even worse. (65 external sites!) I happen to trust iOS a little more than Android but still, I know that many companies out there know exactly what I watch and when. It bothers me.

I am in the process of subnetting my network to put these devices into their own sandboxes so that, should they become compromised, it will be more difficult for them to attack the rest of my infrastructure. TVs have no need to talk to the outside world so they will be put on a subnet that only Indigo has access to. Same for a couple other devices that have shown no bad behavior but also have no need to talk to anything but Indigo. AppleTVs will likewise be on their own subnet but will have access to the greater Internet for content. I will be playing with the Firewall (pfSense) to limit what comes and goes to the sites I actually access for content.

Subnetting is going to cause problems for Bonjour but fortunately pfSense supports Avahi so services advertisements can cross subnet boundaries.

It would be nice to have direct communications with and control over things like my Tesla3 and my Roomba vacuum. The Roomba transmits video to the cloud for mapping purposes. This means that everything in my house has likely been located, identified, and stored on iRobot's servers. That is just freakin' scary. OTOH, the Roomba does a much better job of vacuuming than I do so ...

This is a peek into a much larger problem. I seem to have spent much of my life cutting myself of the bleeding-edge of technology.

I like to solve that one with a set of sensors:

1 radar 5ghz unit = any movement in the room
2+ ir = hear signature: a person / animal is in the Room
1 -2 ibeacon sensors in the room. Using signal strength over time should indicate specific person entering room / in the room/ leaving room. That can be done in ~ 1 sec. Challenge : if the iBeacon is in the front or back pocket will create completely different patterns. But w 2 sensors that should be doable.

The logic - not just sensor values at this point in time but values over time - has to run on one device ( eg rpi ) sending to indigo and waiting for indigo answer would be to slow.

That’s a really nice challenge.

Karl.





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Also, we really need to get this working now. I want to play a laugh track every time I enter a room in my house.

I prefer a fanfare and a crowd cheering.

Or maybe just HAL900 saying, "Good morning Brian. What is in the mission profile for today?"

I hope to never hear:

"Good morning Indigo. Open the garage door please."

"I'm sorry Brian but I can't do that."

I like to solve that one with a set of sensors:

1 radar 5ghz unit = any movement in the room

Most of these devices run in the X-band (10GHz) or K-band (18-27 GHz). Not sure how this works better than PIR for detecting motion in the house tho'.

2+ ir = hear signature: a person / animal is in the Room

Active or passive? PIR can detect motion but not so good when the thing becomes stationary. Active IR beacons would be interesting. An IR emitter transmitting a beacon code periodically (1 per second) would make locating people and animals pretty straight forward. They'd be cheap to make and would run a LONG time on a lithium coin cell. Pin one to your dog's or cat's collar and one each to the front and back of your shirt.

1 -2 ibeacon sensors in the room. Using signal strength over time should indicate specific person entering room / in the room/ leaving room. That can be done in ~ 1 sec. Challenge : if the iBeacon is in the front or back pocket will create completely different patterns. But w 2 sensors that should be doable.

This is why I think that iBeacon is going to be problematic. The CEP is going to be many meters and it is going to require too much power. For the similar kinds of cost we could end up with an ultrasonic acoustic system.

The logic - not just sensor values at this point in time but values over time - has to run on one device ( eg rpi ) sending to indigo and waiting for indigo answer would be to slow.

That’s a really nice challenge.

Dedicated hardware might be the answer. You have created a lot of complexity that might be better solved through the use of a different technology, e.g. acoustic and/or active IR. Just thinking aloud here.

Easy solutions are no fun.


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Also, we really need to get this working now. I want to play a laugh track every time I enter a room in my house.

Lol- I have Yoda’s Force music play through Sonos whenever the garage door opens.