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[20:08]=-=Topic for #opentrv was set by Gadget-Mac on 13 November 2014 at 19:21:26
[20:09]<DamonHD>Testing 3, 2, 1
[20:12]<DamonHD>Is this the future? Where's my jetpack?
[20:29]<DamonHD>Hah!
[20:29]<DamonHD>When the local council finds itself at the vanguard of the technical revolution, you have to assume that somebody was holding it wrong...
[20:30]<DamonHD>Hey Andy!
[20:30]<DamonHD>You know how I said that in your diagram you'd claimed something we weren't doing yet...?
[20:30]<DamonHD>...well, I went and done it, at least in a small way... B^>
[20:31]<DamonHD>I blame half a sleepless night and an extra 0.5% energy savings on your text. More please. B^>
[20:32]<DamonHD>Anticipatory early off.
[20:33]<DamonHD>Only about 8 minutes in this case, but it also helped reduce a "feature" that my daughter discovered turning on her light in the middle of the night...
[20:34]<DamonHD>Yo! Aideen!
[20:34]<DamonHD>Andy: I'm the dino on IRC.
[20:35]-->|Alasdair (webchat@zje-94FE194D.dyn.plus.net) has joined #opentrv
[20:35]<DamonHD>Do not confuse with the occasional dino in our Web shop.
[20:35]<DamonHD>Aideen: bug? What one of these "bug" you speak of?
[20:35]<DamonHD>Well Mark why don't you kick off.
[20:36]<DamonHD>I'm 75% asleep having woken up at 5am to do some code improvement... %-P
[20:36]<DamonHD>(When do we chuck things in a hole in the ground?)
[20:37]<DamonHD>Ah, there we go...
[20:37]<DamonHD>(Andy, hang on to that thought. We have actually pondered that idea...)
[20:40]<DamonHD>(Aideen 6-8 at a guess, for the valves.)
[20:43]<DamonHD>But Aideen we can cover some novel aspect at any allowed TRL
[20:44]<DamonHD>Hang on Mark...
[20:44]<DamonHD>It cannot be a distraction for us, correct,
[20:45]<DamonHD>but it can be something new to us, such as (say) cloud-based optimium on/off and weather response.
[20:45]<DamonHD>So the point I'm saying it it could bring foward stuff we want to do and haven't done much or any of yet.
[20:46]<DamonHD>Ka-ching!
[20:47]<DamonHD>So, Mark, work the crowd here: say what we're after!
[20:47]<DamonHD>B^>
[20:51]<DamonHD>Time-shifted heating based on predictions of scarcity and of weather...
[20:52]<DamonHD>Helping manage transmission constraints for heating fuel...
[20:54]<DamonHD>Oh yes, Andy, one of the scourges OpenTRV is already working on, but could be done better, eg ultrasound detection of open windows.
[20:54]<DamonHD>Aideen, yes that'l a good 'un.
[20:54]<DamonHD>that's
[20:56]<DamonHD>Yep, been to a presnetaion by them of it. The boiler can also detection when you're in by ripples in water pressure when you flush the loo. So then can send an engineer to cath you when you're in...
[20:56]<DamonHD>The Internet of Toilets
[20:56]<DamonHD>Go on Aideen?
[20:57]<DamonHD>(Andy: there can be plenty of fuel such as gas or electrocity available in the system but the pipes are too small to get it to everyone at once.)
[20:58]<DamonHD>(Andy, no such learning at the moment; I don't believe it will be worthwhile until we can off-load analysis to something with MB of storage and GHz of CPU, eg a RPi.)
[20:58]<DamonHD>Aiideen: don't those system have a summer bypass usually? Or opening windows?
[20:59]<DamonHD>I have the latter.
[20:59]<DamonHD>OK
[21:00]<DamonHD>So how might we help; what innovation is needed?
[21:02]<DamonHD>We can do some of that!
[21:02]<DamonHD>What should we be sensing
[21:03]<DamonHD>and what should we be doing with that data?
[21:05]<DamonHD>Aideen: So are we just looking for trouble to report to building managers, or is there some lever we can push to make things better automagically?
[21:06]<DamonHD>Andy: with learning, yes, it would be a key use of the bidrectional comms, so allow a smarter chunk of computing to manager the e valves centrally when availble (and with graceful reversion to local control if radio not working, etc)
[21:06]<DamonHD>Aideen: this is all good griss to the mill, thanks
[21:07]<DamonHD>Jeremy: tell us more?
[21:07]<DamonHD>Yes, I definitely think that the fault handling is a goodie.
[21:08]<DamonHD>Caught our school boiler going bananas and running 24x7
[21:08]<DamonHD>Caught it on my analysis before the caretaker noticed the flue never stopping.
[21:08]<DamonHD>4x faster fuel consumption that usual.
[21:08]<DamonHD>than
[21:12]<DamonHD>Sort of thing that should be sent as a simple alert text message to caretaker's phone where he'll see it before checkign email on Monday of the SPAM killer doesn't eat it.
[21:12]<DamonHD>In this case the analysis would have been simple.
[21:12]<DamonHD>Jeremey: you've seen my school's heating system. But only looked at the good 50% of the rads I think.
[21:13]<DamonHD>Circulation pump seizing in our case.
[21:13]<DamonHD>I managed to persuade the Head that a flush down of the system was worth spending on!
[21:13]<DamonHD>But pump power consumption would prob be an early clue.
[21:14]<DamonHD>Andy: by accident we sort of do at the moment, but we have JIRA for doing it poperly
[21:14]<DamonHD>https://opentrv.atlassian.net/browse/TODO-214
[21:16]<DamonHD>Actually as part of https://opentrv.atlassian.net/browse/TODO-1099 I'm trying to avoid ever fully ramming the valves intot he end stops, which should help:
[21:16]<DamonHD>Oooooo, energy harvesting. I quite fancy 800k to spend on that!
[21:16]<DamonHD>Andy: http://www.earth.org.uk/out/daily/16WWvpc.png
[21:17]<DamonHD>Look at the traces that don't always go to the 0% or 100% levels.
[21:17]<DamonHD>Still a work in progress.
[21:18]<DamonHD>The heating one, eg boiler malfunction, would only need a few weeks' data and an external thermometer or source of HDD data.
[21:18]<DamonHD>Simples.
[21:19]<DamonHD>Heating Degree Days: http://www.degreedays.net/
[21:20]<DamonHD>Andy: not transmitted often unprompted these days to save power but we have done some work in that area
[21:20]<DamonHD>Aideen: Mark's a fan.
[21:21]<DamonHD>Doesn't mesh well with our privacy concerns though!
[21:22]<DamonHD>We nominally support a voice sensor in OpenTRV.
[21:23]<DamonHD>Though we know others who'd like our TRvs with mics as listeners in each room for vulnerable people to listen out for falls, etc, but that's another story.
[21:25]<DamonHD>Nothing has to leave the house for an OpenTRV system to work.
[21:25]<DamonHD>We happen to be collecting data during the trials.
[21:25]<DamonHD>But there is no way that Alexa et al can work without live-ish link to cloud supercomputers.
[21:25]<DamonHD>So we (and our users) have a choice.
[21:26]<DamonHD>I wave my hands and suggest 10% ish better energy savings with cloud modelling of individual homes and use of weather forecast data.
[21:29]<Alasdair>savings come how?
[21:30]<Alasdair>by not heating when not necessary?
[21:30]<DamonHD>Am I allowed to say "magic'?
[21:30]<Alasdair>or by being more efficient at using energy resource?
[21:31]<DamonHD>Alasdair: one example: house with slow response system eg UFH, better occupancy modelling, and better predictive heating to match weather, could save loads
[21:31]<DamonHD>I agree with Mark that a voice driven system could be a MUCH nice UI than fiddling with smartphones or whatever
[21:32]<DamonHD>But don't want to have my heating stuck when DSL goes down, as used to happen with Hive AFAIK.
[21:32]<Alasdair>seems like around 3 different scenarios
[21:32]<Alasdair>1. not heating when not necessary
[21:32]<Alasdair>2. "smarter" heating when heating is desired
[21:32]<Alasdair>3. Detection and reporting of anomalies
[21:32]<DamonHD>voice can be if you're merely detecting presence, not responding to commands
[21:33]<DamonHD>AlasdairL yes, all good.
[21:33]<DamonHD>Now where's our 800k and nice dinner with Mrs May?
[21:33]<DamonHD>B^>
[21:33]<DamonHD>Nope.
[21:34]<Alasdair>I have PIR sensors in most rooms
[21:35]<Alasdair>have been gathering temperature / humidity / PIR motion detection for the past 2 or 3 years
[21:35]<DamonHD>Would be v interested to get data set comparing PIR output to OpenTRV current occupancy detection. You should see how I currently torture my data to get the results!
[21:36]<DamonHD>Have you been gathering ambient light level alongside, eg in 1-minute intervals, pretty please?
[21:36]<Alasdair>hmmm .. I don't think I currently have a PIR sensor in the same room as my OpenTRV sensor
[21:37]<DamonHD>PIR and ambient light readings together would do fine, at ~1min intervals!
[21:38]<DamonHD>I currently optimise against effectively ~20k data points embedded in unit tests!
[21:38]<DamonHD>Hand annotated.
[21:38]<DamonHD>Am I sad or what?
[21:38]<DamonHD>This kinda fun:
[21:38]<DamonHD>http://www.earth.org.uk/img/20161115-amblight-occ-analysis-3l-evening.svg
[21:39]<DamonHD>Would you like me to point you to the bit of the code where I deal with that and passing clouds? %-P
[21:41]<DamonHD>No, no, the word you are looking for is "obsessional".
[21:41]<DamonHD>Anyhow, That;s the sort of plae where I think that we can inject some quiet smarts.
[21:42]<DamonHD>Eg detecting presence from sharply rising RH% and opening the bypass if temps inside and outside over (say) 21C.
[21:42]<DamonHD>Andy: It's family watching TV.
[21:42]<DamonHD>I can detect that tool, thus the occ% (occupancy line) staying reasonably steady.
[21:43]<DamonHD>too
[21:43]<DamonHD>Anyhow, enough of my willy-waving...
[21:44]<DamonHD>Thanks for all the ideas tonight.
[21:44]<DamonHD>And BTW first Web shop orders are being dispatched tomorrow, Parcel2Go willing.
[21:45]<DamonHD>Minimal interaction to achieve cost, comfort, control.
[21:45]<Alasdair>I can say from my own experience of automation ....
[21:45]<DamonHD>Spend more time with your life, less with your boiler and gas supplier.
[21:45]<Alasdair>that once you experience it, you don't want to go back to not having it
[21:46]<DamonHD>I;d like people to forget OpenTRV is there, and the BadOldDays before.
[21:46]<Alasdair>in my case, it is automation of lights being switched off and on, rather than heating, which I do not yet have up & running
[21:46]<Alasdair>Damon : that's right, sometimes I notice my light switch and remember that I never have to use it
[21:46]<DamonHD>B^>
[21:47]<DamonHD>Well, as a geek you;d get the version with all the knobs to tune, but would not feel the need to mess with many of them.
[21:47]<Alasdair>if you an early adopter / bleeding-edge tester, I would expect that you would be tinkering with it
[21:47]<DamonHD>Like Linux kernel tuning parameters!
[21:48]<DamonHD>But not *having* to tinker, so being able to concentrate tinkering on the bits interesting to you.
[21:48]<DamonHD>Not directly yet, but look at this:
[21:48]<DamonHD>http://www.earth.org.uk/out/daily/OpenTRV/16WWSensorPower.html
[21:49]<DamonHD>Low voltage is 2.45V.
[21:49]<DamonHD>(There are various hints the UI gives about low battery, and the valve attempts to fail open.)
[21:50]<DamonHD>Yes.
[21:50]<DamonHD>Or better, none at all, thus our keen interest in energy harvesting.
[21:51]<DamonHD>https://github.com/opentrv/OTWiki/wiki/Energy-Harvesting-Feasibility
[21:51]<Alasdair>a couple of my Oregon temperature / humidity sensors are reporting low battery, after 3 years of use
[21:52]<Alasdair>one of the things I want to do is tweak fhem to detect and report this via e-mail
[21:52]<DamonHD>Yes, FHEM is one connectivity route for us.
[21:52]<Alasdair>I'm also curious to discover how long after reporting low battery, that they will continue to work
[21:53]<Alasdair>Damon : I don't know if you remember, but I wrote an OpenTRV module for fhem
[21:54]<Alasdair>probably needs updating to newer firmware ...
[21:54]<DamonHD>Ah-ha!
[21:54]<DamonHD>Milenk who did your new fast radio channel is pushing us towards FHEM:
[21:55]<DamonHD>https://opentrv.atlassian.net/browse/TODO-1089
[21:55]<Alasdair>the smartest thing that it does currently is send a current time to the board when it boots
[21:55]<DamonHD>Milenko
[21:55]<Alasdair>but I can also send arbitrary commands through the fhem interface, which means telnet or browser
[21:55]<DamonHD>I haven't remembered: very remiss of me.
[21:56]<DamonHD>That would be on the FS20 carrier/frame yes?
[21:56]<DamonHD>Andy: yes, trying to move them less!
[21:56]<Alasdair>IIRC my code was originally based on the FS20 module
[21:56]<DamonHD>But alternative drive valve mechanisms too.
[21:57]<DamonHD>7J for a complete round-trip IIRC. It's on the energy harvesting page.
[21:58]|<--HEx has left irc.z.je (Ping timeout: 246 seconds)
[22:02]<DamonHD>Beyond my bedtime now.
[22:02]<DamonHD>Any more for any more?
[22:03]<DamonHD>Not yet.
[22:03]<DamonHD>But y'all inched us closer, I hope!
[22:03]<DamonHD>We'll take bank transfers.
[22:03]<Alasdair>can pets affect occupancy detection?
[22:04]<Alasdair>I thought that occupancy detection was based on variance in luminance
[22:04]<DamonHD>I know that Aideen has a few millions burning a hole in her pocket... %-P
[22:04]<DamonHD>Alasdair: a number of things feed into the occupancy module.
[22:04]<DamonHD>Use of the physical controls
[22:05]<DamonHD>Ambient light behaviour (not just changes these days).
[22:05]<DamonHD>If you cat can operate the controls or your lights then we can definitely detect your cat. And we welcome our new feline overlord.
[22:05]<Alasdair>are you aware of many false positives?
[22:06]<DamonHD>There are false +ves, and is something the unit tests check for.
[22:06]<Alasdair>if it is good at occupancy detection, it could serve as intruder detection
[22:06]<DamonHD>The tolerance level for false +ves and -ves is currently 10%
[22:07]<DamonHD>We won't detect burglars using torches.
[22:07]<Alasdair>ok
[22:07]<DamonHD>Unless they are flaming ones I suppose.
[22:07]<DamonHD>But voice and mobile phone detection modules can also be plugged in.
[22:07]<DamonHD>The interface is v simple.
[22:08]<DamonHD>I do to.
[22:08]<DamonHD>too
[22:08]<DamonHD>It's didn;t get where we wanted it to (we ran out of time) but we're still working slowly on some leads.
[22:09]<DamonHD>My typos are artisan and reveal character...
[22:10]<DamonHD>My lawyer tells me not to deny it. As does my Turning Test programmer^W coach.
[22:10]<DamonHD>I must go?
[22:10]<DamonHD>Any last requests?
[22:11]<DamonHD>Turing
[22:11]-->|HEx (HEx@zje-2841F6DF.plus.com) has joined #opentrv
[22:12]<Alasdair>i have a question about the valves in the shop
[22:12]<Alasdair>I have a conrad valve currently
[22:13]<Alasdair>and I discovered that it had slipped off the radiator - wasn't gripping the pipe sufficiently
[22:13]<Alasdair>is the form factor / design of the OpenTRV valve similar to the Conrad?
[22:13]<DamonHD>Up to a point Lord Copper.
[22:13]<Alasdair>I should try it out, but slightly concerned about whether is will stay on correctly
[22:13]<DamonHD>Same M30x1.5 fitting.
[22:14]<Alasdair>ok
[22:14]<DamonHD>Some fudging to deal with the fact that the 'standard' one is barely even de facto.
[22:14]<Alasdair>functionally, it should do the same as the conrad?
[22:14]<DamonHD>Yes.
[22:15]<Alasdair>ok
[22:15]<Alasdair>and is the board functionality much changed in ... I guess over the past year?
[22:15]<Alasdair>I wanted to use one board as a transceiver
[22:15][INFO]
[22:16]<Alasdair>can I upgrade the firmware on the boards that I have, or would I be better off with a more recent board?
[22:16]<DamonHD>Do you have a REV2?
[22:16]<Alasdair>yes, Rev2
[22:16]<DamonHD>Our code will happily run on REV1s and REV2s and I often use them for debugging, but the config may need tweaking.
[22:16]<Alasdair>two REV2s
[22:16]<DamonHD>REV2 is no problem.
[22:16]<Alasdair>ok
[22:17]<Alasdair>but it's not a transceiver yet?
[22:17]<DamonHD>I even have up to date configs for REV2.
[22:17]<DamonHD>No, we need to get the listen-after-talk stuff working, and with security.
[22:17]<Alasdair>yes, security ...
[22:17]<DamonHD>It's not rocket science, but it isn;t written yet.
[22:18]<Alasdair>I was thinking about security when I bought a replacement DECT phone the other day
[22:18]<Alasdair>security that matches DECT would be acceptable for another device in the home, I guess?
[22:18]<DamonHD>I think that ours is quite good, and quote possible better than DECT. We've had some external scrutiny.
[22:19]<DamonHD>Anyhow, I shall be in trouble if I don't go to bed right now...
[22:19]<DamonHD>We can repeat this next week or on the Discource forum or the mail lists if you'd like.
[22:19]<DamonHD>With all-new typos.
[22:19]<Alasdair>sure
[22:21]<DamonHD>(BTW note that if running on a REV2 you can't talk to the FHT8V with our secure protocol. Nominally we can speak secure and FS20, but I haven't tested the config yet.)
[22:21]<DamonHD>OK, that's all folks.
[22:21]<DamonHD>Night all.
[22:21]<DamonHD>And thanks for those ideas.
[22:21]<DamonHD>o&o
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