I want to create a routine for a bathroom to remind people to wash their hands. I’m having trouble making this work with Rule Machine. I’ve got a background in assembly language, C, C++, Java, VBA, and have scratched the surface with Python. I’ve not made a living in any of these recently, but have sharpened my skills lately.
To accomplish the following, what is the best approach?
the door sensor opens after a long period of time, so we assume someone is entering the bathroom
turn on the light and fan
there is an Amazon soap smart soap dispenser
3.5) the door closes
a few to several minutes later the door opens and the soap dispenser has not been activated so Alexa says “don’t forget to wash your hands”
the soap dispenser is activated, and 15 seconds later Alexa says “thank you for washing your hands”
In a perfect world I’d like to do this with rule machine, but I’m happy to dive in and develop some code if needed. Thoughts/ideas?
Maybe a small electric charge could be wired up to the door handle to remind the person leaving the room.... Like those old joke handshake toys....
But seriously.... your issue is a tough one to crack, it is essentially the same as room occupancy. I live alone and so for much of my lighting rules it is tempting to line up a sequence of events that you expect to occur and then inject some action when, in your case something doesn't happen as you expect, or in my case when something does happen, such as "the door opened, closed, turn the lights on, the door opened and closed again, turn the lights off.
The problem is people.... it always is... We don't follow the same pattern every time. And when you get more than one person together it becomes even more difficult. A simple example could be entering the room but not closing the door, say while you are cleaning the bathroom.
The best I can think of, and don't know if this is a thing..... But if there are any sensors for water flow, if you could detect that the toilet has been flushed, then that could be the trigger for checking the soap dispenser has been used.
Yeah I agree..(edit: with the non-electrified bit!! ) that's why I think it would be simpler just to announce it upon entry - plant the seed and it's up to the person. You could even have it work between certain times so as not to trigger at night for example. This would also mean you don't really need that fancy albeit terrifying soap dispenser.
I was also thinking about some kind of drone.... We are easily amused @Sunmill ....
Back to the task at hand.... Perhaps a combination of contact sensor on the door and a motion sensor may allow you to raise some kind of notification / alert that someone has been in the bathroom and may not have washed their hands. It will most likely still suffer from some of the issues I hinted at earlier with trying to keep occupancy state for a room, but might be worth trialling. And that might the way to approach this, try a few different approaches and see what works for your family.
We don't follow the same pattern every time. And when you get more than one person together it becomes even more difficult. A simple example could be entering the room but not closing the door, say while you are cleaning the bathroom.
) that's why I think it would be simpler just to announce it upon entry - plant the seed and it's up to the person. You could even have it work between certain times so as not to trigger at night for example. This would also mean you don't really need that fancy albeit terrifying soap dispenser.
