uBot and the real world? - Get Real!

[Kev 69]

You know, as long as your software can read in information, you can pretty much do what you want with it.

 

I've been thinking lately of some ways to integrate the environment around me, such as light intensity, temperature and noise and think of ways to integrate this into ubot.

Sounds pretty weird, right?

 

Well, think of this as an idea.

 

Imagine you run a twitter account for your local town. You use it mainly to monitor the weather - particularly the temperature and moisture levels in the air. What if there was a way you could pull in the real world environment around you and input it into your software programs? If the temperature drops and it starts to rain, you could immediately send out a tweet to your followers notifying them of the change.

 

Perhaps you're looking after an elderly relative. What if there was a way you could monitor the movement in a room, for example the kitchen, and that if the person hadnt been in the kitchen in 4 hours during the day) it would send you an alarm of some sort, whether in the form of an email, call or SMS? Whilst I can acknowledge things like this probably already exist, why not use ubot to do the integration for you, by having that send you the alarm/call/sms?

 

There's a very practical and affordable way to integrate the real world environment with your software. It's a piece of kit called Raspberry PI http://www.raspberrypi.org/

 

http://www6.pcmag.com/media/images/351321-raspberry-pi.jpg?thumb=y

 

There are other boards out there that do similar things - I just like the rPI personally.

 

Components are very affordable for it and there's plenty of support out there and also tutorials and code freely available.

 

But here's how the integration would work:

 

Rather than having to learn how to program python and a whole host of other commands in order to run your elderly person monitor (as an example) why not simply have the rPI log the movement, when detected, to a remote database? That's ALL it would need to do and then your bot can do the rest! You could even tie in a 3G modem to it and use it in a remote location without wifi. You could even tether it to your iPhone either as a personal hotspot or through the usb cable (which I've already done before).

 

The applications for this can make your head spin, really. But with a bit of thinking you could run a home automation system and use ubot as the conduit between the outside environment and the desired result.

 

Getting dark outside? Your sensor picks this drop in light intensity, writes to a database, ubot picks up the database record, logs into a home automation system and turns the lights on!

 

You'd need your bots running 24/7 monitoring the database for records, and once detected it will do what it needs to do: update a website, send a tweet, call you (you could use twilio for integration) send you an SMS (again twilio) pretty much whatever you needed it to do it could do for you. Heck if you have it phone you, you could have it read out the data in robot form!

 

For info on how to set up the database for 24/7 check my signature for a tutorial I posted. However, the real integration will be the rPI to the database and then once that's nailed down all you'll need are the ideas and applications.

 

 

Some ideas:

 

fridge detection - has the fridge been opened in the last X hours? If not, send an SMS

pollution level in the air has increased - make a cal/SMS to notify someone

backup carbon monoxide detector (obviously a back up - use a real one!)

noise detector - log noises heard during the night and plot them on a website to track when the most noise appears in your house (for whatever reason)

motion detection - dog or cat get up for a stroll during the night? Capture a picture and upload the data!

and on and on....

 

 

Anyhow - this thread was put together simply to demonstrate that ubot is not all about internet marketing! It's got real world applications to it, too.

[Steve 30]

Interesting ideas Kev! 

[Kev 69]

Interesting ideas Kev! 

Well if you can teach your dog to use a laptop then I guess anything's possible in this world!

[jason 101]

Bump hoping someone builds one of these and sells it. The market is wiiiide open.

[bestmacros 60]

running the bot 24/7 is problematic part - it will eat all memory and crash sooner or later

[Big Jay 35]

Very cool post! 

 

I have been playing around with ubot and my Arduino. (I haven't built anything that is viable yet) I think there are some real life applications that could be developed. It will just be a bit more involved than creating a digital product and selling it. 

 

I've never worked with Raspberry PI, how different is it to the Arduino Uno? (I guess I should have asked if you've ever played with a Arduino, lol)

 

Man there are so many things that you can do with ubot. Makes my head swim sometimes when I think about it. 

[Seth Turin 223]

This thread is my favorite thing that I've read in a while.

[Kev 69]

To give you an idea how I used this more recently (back in February I think) - I wanted to make a warning system for blind/partially blind people that would alert them if any natural disasters occured.

 

The idea was to set up a warning system that would notify someone via raspberry PI that an earthquake over a certain magnitude happened - this way alerting them of the danger.

 

I hooked up my raspberry pi to a portable speaker system and the PI was constantly checking a file to see if there was any text in it... if there was it would grab that text and read it out using a google voice widget which created an mp3 file (this is NOT something unique - many do this google text to speech thing with rPI already, I just re-used the code).

However, where ubot came in was it was constantly monitoring twitter and in particular a couple of earthquake accounts that would tweet when quakes happened. I simply looked for tweets over a certain magnitude and when it was found I would upload the text to a (either dropbox or ftp I cant quite remember) and then the rPI would read it out!

 

I actually entered a competition with this setup, however when I went to demonstrate it using their wifi (which i was told was available) it wouldnt allow me on the network...

 

Anyhow, the idea was to help members of my family with bad eye sight - and they could hear any breaking news etc as it happened. They could, of course, use a radio, I know that! But if I had control over the news sources they could at least get more sources of information and as accurate information as possible.

 

 

EDIT: the twitter warning system I had already set up - the audio part to relay the tweets has been done many times by rPI community members - source code is 100% freely available.

[Kev 69]

Very cool post! 

 

I have been playing around with ubot and my Arduino. (I haven't built anything that is viable yet) I think there are some real life applications that could be developed. It will just be a bit more involved than creating a digital product and selling it. 

 

I've never worked with Raspberry PI, how different is it to the Arduino Uno? (I guess I should have asked if you've ever played with a Arduino, lol)

 

Man there are so many things that you can do with ubot. Makes my head swim sometimes when I think about it. 

Hey Jay, I havent used Arduino, but the two devices aren't a whole lot different. As long as we can take in inputs from the environment (both can do this) then we just need to relay this information to a database, csv file, etc then ubot does the rest.

 

My reason for using ubot - I've invested enough time into ubot to learn it that I'd sooner stick with this then go learning another host of code and syntax and languages!

[Kev 69]

running the bot 24/7 is problematic part - it will eat all memory and crash sooner or later

Hey bud, if you check my signature I wrote a piece at the bottom of that thread that addresses the memory issues I had. Never had a problem running bots 24/7 using that method plus, using TJ's OS Commands plugin it helps even more.

[Kev 69]

This thread is my favorite thing that I've read in a while.

Thanks

[kev123 132]

this is a great thread my background is in programmable logic controllers which can do what your looking at but on a larger scale(think machines in different locations all talking to each other and passing information).

 

I would be happy to help anyone looking to get ubot to control "real world stuff".

[kev123 132]

for more ideas http://www.amazon.co.uk/LightwaveRF-Controlled-Starter-JSJS-WIFISASKIT/dp/B007XFSMEG#productDetails

[Kev 69]

for more ideas http://www.amazon.co.uk/LightwaveRF-Controlled-Starter-JSJS-WIFISASKIT/dp/B007XFSMEG#productDetails

Interesting. I looked at Belkin's WeMo but this looks more flexible. Thanks for that kev123

[kev123 132]

1. this or similar http://www.controlanything.com/Relay/Relay/Wi-Fi_Relay_Controllers

2.make small electrical box with plugs or connections  "in" "out" for switching stuff.

3.make plugin for Ubot or u may be able to use pure socket commands(not http) depending on how the device receives data. 

4.control from Ubot.

 

you now can switch all your small kitchen devices or even turn on sprinklers based on current weather from websites.

 

to control from away from home use remote desktop for the computer that the ubot bot is on or use kev method he posted on controlling ubot from website.

[mithcd 4]

Very well said Kev. I enjoyed reading it. 

[Edward_2 85]

I just got a knew Gigabyte Mobo. i found that it has an ON/OFF charge for usb ports. (charges usb devices while shut of) It includes a config file... Ive been thinking about this and how to make this work in the way that was described by the op. Maybe have it turn certain USB ports power off via Ubot, writting to the config file, then shut down the system...

[the_way 52]

could you run a windows emulator on the pi, and then just run a ubot exe? you could easily setup a few linux macros to reset the program, or send an email any issues.

[Kev 69]

I don believe the rPI will run windows based applications. I looked at it before and I recall it is an architecture limitation.

[Kev 69]

For those interested in seeing an integration in action, I've posted a video here http://www.ubotstudio.com/forum/index.php?/topic/15407-ubot-and-the-real-world-part-ii/