A super sensor for smart homes
Homeowners looking to turn their living spaces into super-smart homes may be able to do so with just one small sensor.
At least that’s the notion touted by a recent Carnegie Mellon University project.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University say the tiny Synthetic Sensors — which simply require an electrical outlet to plug in — can capture all of the environmental data in a room that can turn ordinary household items into smart devices.
Gierad Laput, lead researcher on the prototype, aims to help build a smart-home environment that knows more about itself than the residents who live in them.
Ten embedded sensors within the modules collect information such as electromagnetic noise, humidity, light, motion and sound, which gets translated into “context-specific information about what’s happening in the room,” Wired.com says.
If a homeowner forgets to shut off an oven or is away while a faucet is leaking, the sensors could detect these activities.
“Our initial question was, can you actually sense all these things from a single point?” lead researcher Gierad Laput said.
In other words, Laput and his team are, more or less, training these devices to understand the difference between a blender from a coffee maker, even if moved to another part of a kitchen, and assign each object or action with its own specific signature (meaning breaking down the noises, creaks, etc.).