I bought an Orbit Zigbee Faucet controller the other day and had it delivered yesterday. It got a friend of mine talking with me about how if you had 10 of them in a grid with motion sensors, you could set up a water-obstacle course of sorts, or a security grid. He actually had some coworkers express interest in buying the other controllers for me to complete this idea
A few minutes later we didn’t find it feasible since the delay on the orbit is so long.
This got me thinking. What other amazingly hacky automation ideas have you all come up with?
I decided I needed one. But certainly not just a hose into a pipe with a on/off tap.
I had to permanently install it, with an in-line electric water heater and then a Zwave Door sensor converted to a button integrated into the wooden grid/pad at the bottom. Stand on the wooden grid, the hub turns on a sprinkler valve delivering water to the heater and then out the shower head. 20 seconds later (since this is assumed to be used mostly by kids,) the water turns off. They must get off and then on the wood pad to get another 20 seconds.
The hard part was digging the trench to get 220v@60A to the Heater. #2 gauge wire is not much fun.
I saw this idea like 20 years ago, so it's not mine. Get this, a film noir house.
Basically, motion sensors and such, and a gruff male TTS voice which speaks phrases based on your location in the home, time of day, etc. For example, you get up at 3am to take a leak. The system turns on the water in your gutters outside the house with holes drilled in the bottom so it's like it's raining out. It then narrates, "It was 3am, and still raining. I couldn't sleep. All I could think about was that red-headed dame at the bar who kept undressing me with those smokey eyes..."
That was of course my first inclination but then I decided a touch of heat would be great. Plumbing hot water from the house to the garden was harder than the Electricity and I had cold water nearby for the sprinkler system. So quickly making it permanent became the easy way IF heat was to be included.
Oh, and this one that I actually have now. I have a dog. He's sweet, but scary looking, and definitely NOT a friend of any burglar or suspicious character. If my alarm system is tripped, I have a TTS voice that says "Security breach. Leave the premises immediately. The police have been notified. Releasing dogs in T-minus 30 seconds." And then it does a t-minus countdown every 5 seconds, then 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
I was bored. It actually doesn't release the dogs, since the dog is already released. However, when I originally created this I would crate the dog when not home, and they sell solenoids to electronically open dog crates. It would have been easy to actually implement "releasing" the dogs.
Also, when I fire alarm is tripped, it speaks "Fire, man's oldest enemy, destroyer of trees and forests. This building is now on fire. I repeat, this building, is now on fire. Please enact the age old practice of self-preservation and vacate the premises immediately." If any of you have seen Gremlins 2, this is what was spoken by the skyscraper over the speaker system when the gremlins were destroying it.
Here's the hot water heater I am using. It is outdoors about a foot above ground, against a property wall. Time has allowed the plants to mostly hide it.
Actually, this guy is the classic, starts around the 45 second mark:
And, you've gotta have music, and background sound effects like sirens and such. Unfortunately, I don't think you're gonna find a film noir style TTS voice. You're probably going to need to collect sound clips for the right sound to make it immersive.
I don't know if you'd qualify this as "amazingly hacky", but I'm thinking about installing a pair of RGB spotlights in my front yard pointed toward the house, and then creating an app that cycles them between red and blue colors to simulate a police car parked in front. I might combine this with a speaker that can play audio of police outside discussing whether to wait for backup before going in.
I haven't done this yet, so if anyone already has I'd be happy not to have to write the app. Also, it might turn out to be illegal. I'll have to check that first, of course.
