7 ms·

I'm pretty much doing that very thing. I'm quadriplegic, so every single action I want to take in the world has to be mediated through a third party. That said

I'm pretty much doing that very thing. I'm quadriplegic, so every single action I want to take in the world has to be mediated through a third party. That said party is anything from another person to one of the digital assistants. As another poster mentioned I think, I control pretty much everything in my house including but not limited to unlocking doors, windows, climate control, the lights, posting to Twitter and on and on and on with a cobbled together solution of many different components from different companies. It's done with a combination of all three of the digital assistants, various scripts and the very wonderful Home Assistant[^1] mostly gluing it altogether. It is by no means a single complete solution, but when I'm controlling the house using just my voice and somebody sees me doing it they react as though I'm some sort of dark wizard. I love having an automated house and I think Home Assistant is probably one of the best solutions for making all of the different IoT devices communicate at the moment, I think the further down this road we go the more a single solution will probably evolve. I would have to say though that the home automation stuff that enables me to call for help in an emergency is the most important thing that it does, I can flash the lights different colours when I need help depending on the level of assistance I need. Or if my Fitbit notices that my heart rate has gone below 40 BPM for more than 10 seconds I get a notification, as it is almost indicative of an attack of Autonomic Dysreflexia. I can honestly say that this home automation system has actually saved my life without an ounce of hyperbole. [^1]: https://Home-assistant.io/ https://Home-assistant.io/

rebuilder 7y ago
Sounds very cool! What are you using for sensors and physical hardware? I mean light switches, temperature control etc - I browsed the home assistant site but didn't really come out with an understanding of what hardware the system can communicate with to, say, turn off a lightbulb.
- icebraining 7y ago
  You use a component to connect to some networked light control system. The "Light" category has 71 components: https://www.home-assistant.io/components/#light https://www.home-assistant.io/components/#light An example would be IKEA Trådfri (https://www.home-assistant.io/components/tradfri/); https://www.home-assistant.io/components/tradfri/); you connect the lights to its gateway device, then Home Assistant will use the API provided by that gateway to control the lights.
  - rebuilder 7y ago
    Thank you, components is what I needed to find!
spzb 7y ago
Thanks for the insights into your setup. If you don't mind my asking, how do you go about interacting with traditional desktop and web-based interfaces? Is there anything that a web developer like me should know in order to make life easier for you?
oulipo 7y ago
And if you want to add a 100% offline and private-by-design Voice AI which can run on a Raspberry Pi 3 (and iOS, Android, Linux), take a look at what we are building at https://snips.ai https://snips.ai (it also integrates to Home Assistant) It works for english, german, french, japanese, spanish, italian, and more coming soon!
- guzik 7y ago
  Looks awesome! Any plans for FreeRTOS?
  - dvndvn 7y ago
    Snips.Ai runs as docker container in home assistant. I'm sure you can docker stuff on FreeRTOS
- escapologybb 7y ago
  Can you email me, I would love to move more and more of this stuff inside the wire and if we can do something that we can then share with other quadriplegics so they can keep control of their own medical info; that would be very groovy.
- cferr 7y ago
  This looks very close to what I was looking for about a year ago when I wanted to try my hand at making my own 'personal assistant'. I was thinking something like the Star Trek computer but just for data lookups and binary execution rather than calculations and data analysis. e.g. "Computer, look up 'can cats eat pancakes?'" which would just open Firefox and input that in a DDG search, or, "Computer, play the song 'Never Gonna Give You Up'" which would open WMP and play that song from my offline music library. Ideally it would vocally respond with some pre-baked yes/no responses before executing the command. Is that doable with your software? Does it have a Python API?
alrojo 7y ago
Do you have a good "beginners guide to the ultimate voice setup"?
brlewis 7y ago
>if my Fitbit notices that my heart rate has gone below 40 BPM for more than 10 seconds I get a notification, as it is almost indicative of an attack of Autonomic Dysreflexia. I can honestly say that this home automation system has actually saved my life without an ounce of hyperbole. I'm a #FitbitEmployee but I don't speak for Fitbit. Speaking personally, I'm happy that it's worked well for you so far, but I'm concerned if it's likely that your life will depend on consistently good HR from a Fitbit. Although manufacturing has improved a lot since Charge HR days, they still aren't medical-grade devices. You should talk to a medical professional about what to use to monitor your heart rate.
- escapologybb 7y ago
  Thank you for your concern, but I never and would never place my life in the hands of any one piece of anything really. Be that technology, person or process. The Fitbit has given me a heads up a little earlier than I otherwise would have got it, the value added for me is that it's cheap and a great indicator. But an indicator is all it is and it is part of a wider protocol we have in the house for preventing and detecting Autonomic Dysreflexia. A vital part, but still just one component. I do wish I could turn off the step counter though, and if it could detect when I'm asleep that would also be great. The former I don't think I'm ever going to do very well on and the latter is really not the fault of the device as I don't move around very much at all. Thanks again for your concern! :-)
- dvndvn 7y ago
  Good hearted advice but lacking in few aspects. Most medical products are terrible with open integrations and open standards. I suspect this kind of advice is given by consumer companies for fear of liability than anything else. In many cases, medical devices that have consumer equivalents don't have anything extra than a better written user agreement and little more liability.
  - brlewis 7y ago
    The distinction between medical and non-medical devices is meaningful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_device https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_device
mattbgates 7y ago
Very interesting information on that site and it's good to see you involved in a part of the programming world.
powderburned 7y ago
I would very much like to learn more about what you're doing. My wife sustained a spinal cord injury and while is still able to walk with assistance, there are issues that she still has that present fall risks and with some sensory issues. I've been adding home automation in little bits at a time as we can afford it also using Home Assistant and working to make the system as bullet proof as possible.

rebuilder 7y ago

Sounds very cool! What are you using for sensors and physical hardware? I mean light switches, temperature control etc - I browsed the home assistant site but didn't really come out with an understanding of what hardware the system can communicate with to, say, turn off a lightbulb.

icebraining 7y ago
You use a component to connect to some networked light control system. The "Light" category has 71 components: https://www.home-assistant.io/components/#light https://www.home-assistant.io/components/#light An example would be IKEA Trådfri (https://www.home-assistant.io/components/tradfri/); https://www.home-assistant.io/components/tradfri/); you connect the lights to its gateway device, then Home Assistant will use the API provided by that gateway to control the lights.
- rebuilder 7y ago
  Thank you, components is what I needed to find!

spzb 7y ago

Thanks for the insights into your setup. If you don't mind my asking, how do you go about interacting with traditional desktop and web-based interfaces? Is there anything that a web developer like me should know in order to make life easier for you?

oulipo 7y ago

And if you want to add a 100% offline and private-by-design Voice AI which can run on a Raspberry Pi 3 (and iOS, Android, Linux), take a look at what we are building at https://snips.ai https://snips.ai (it also integrates to Home Assistant) It works for english, german, french, japanese, spanish, italian, and more coming soon!

guzik 7y ago
Looks awesome! Any plans for FreeRTOS?
- dvndvn 7y ago
  Snips.Ai runs as docker container in home assistant. I'm sure you can docker stuff on FreeRTOS
escapologybb 7y ago
Can you email me, I would love to move more and more of this stuff inside the wire and if we can do something that we can then share with other quadriplegics so they can keep control of their own medical info; that would be very groovy.
cferr 7y ago
This looks very close to what I was looking for about a year ago when I wanted to try my hand at making my own 'personal assistant'. I was thinking something like the Star Trek computer but just for data lookups and binary execution rather than calculations and data analysis. e.g. "Computer, look up 'can cats eat pancakes?'" which would just open Firefox and input that in a DDG search, or, "Computer, play the song 'Never Gonna Give You Up'" which would open WMP and play that song from my offline music library. Ideally it would vocally respond with some pre-baked yes/no responses before executing the command. Is that doable with your software? Does it have a Python API?

alrojo 7y ago

Do you have a good "beginners guide to the ultimate voice setup"?

brlewis 7y ago

>if my Fitbit notices that my heart rate has gone below 40 BPM for more than 10 seconds I get a notification, as it is almost indicative of an attack of Autonomic Dysreflexia. I can honestly say that this home automation system has actually saved my life without an ounce of hyperbole. I'm a #FitbitEmployee but I don't speak for Fitbit. Speaking personally, I'm happy that it's worked well for you so far, but I'm concerned if it's likely that your life will depend on consistently good HR from a Fitbit. Although manufacturing has improved a lot since Charge HR days, they still aren't medical-grade devices. You should talk to a medical professional about what to use to monitor your heart rate.

escapologybb 7y ago
Thank you for your concern, but I never and would never place my life in the hands of any one piece of anything really. Be that technology, person or process. The Fitbit has given me a heads up a little earlier than I otherwise would have got it, the value added for me is that it's cheap and a great indicator. But an indicator is all it is and it is part of a wider protocol we have in the house for preventing and detecting Autonomic Dysreflexia. A vital part, but still just one component. I do wish I could turn off the step counter though, and if it could detect when I'm asleep that would also be great. The former I don't think I'm ever going to do very well on and the latter is really not the fault of the device as I don't move around very much at all. Thanks again for your concern! :-)
dvndvn 7y ago
Good hearted advice but lacking in few aspects. Most medical products are terrible with open integrations and open standards. I suspect this kind of advice is given by consumer companies for fear of liability than anything else. In many cases, medical devices that have consumer equivalents don't have anything extra than a better written user agreement and little more liability.
- brlewis 7y ago
  The distinction between medical and non-medical devices is meaningful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_device https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_device

mattbgates 7y ago

Very interesting information on that site and it's good to see you involved in a part of the programming world.

powderburned 7y ago

I would very much like to learn more about what you're doing. My wife sustained a spinal cord injury and while is still able to walk with assistance, there are issues that she still has that present fall risks and with some sensory issues. I've been adding home automation in little bits at a time as we can afford it also using Home Assistant and working to make the system as bullet proof as possible.