Review of my driveway sensor

First, The SOHO Shop installed some panasonic cameras for me, one of which is pointed down my driveway.

They also added a panasonic bl-wv10a tv adaptor which allows me to see and control my cameras on my tv by connecting it to my matrix switch through a composite input. Without this I wouldn’t be able to pull up the specific camera and see live video based on a trigger. Control4 currently only allows you to pop up a static picture of the camera based on a trigger which isn’t that great if someone isn’t in the exact correct position when the doorbell is pressed or driveway senses a car. To clarify you can go to the cop screen press house, then camera, then select the camera you want to see and get live video without the tv adaptor. You just can’t get this screen to pop up due to a program trigger like push of a door bell or in this case someone pulling into the driveway.

Video of manually seeing the cameras through the usual C4 GUI and then the TV adaptor.

Next they placed 2 sensors at the end of my driveway.

http://www.mierproducts.com/pdfs/Buried%20Sensor%20Drive-Alert%20Systems%20Cut-Sheets.pdf

One very close to the road and the next about 30 feet closer to the house. The sensors come pre-attached to an extremely long cable (you can order different lengths). I put them in conduit in case I ever need to replace them (gosh I hope not, I’ll have to pull for a day to get it all the way out. Not to mention the over 500 ft of string I’ll need to attach to the end so I can pull it or a new one back in). The cables run into my house and down into my equipment room in the basement. Then I had the conduit buried, this was done right after I had the concrete poured so I had to level off my driveway anyway so there wasn’t any extra labor in burying the conduit. Now each sensor runs to a control panel which was mounted on the wall and one card access contact switch was attatched to both control panels as seen below.

Now that everything is connected it’s time to program.
First I created a Boolean variable “driveway sensor on”. I then chose to use one of the 4 buttons on the 7 inch touch screen in the kitchen to toggle this variable. This will allow me to turn the driveway sensor programming off and on.

I also told the leds on one switch in the kitchen to turn red if the variable was false(off) and return to it’s normal color when the variable was true (on). This gives me a visual cue to know that I toggled the variable and to remind me later on in case I forgot that I turned it off.

In composer there are 2 driveway sensor icons, one labeled “close to road” and the other “close to house”. I created 2 more Boolean variables, one titled “car approaching”, and the other “car leaving”. Now I select the “close to road” sensor on the left side of composer and then under that chose “senses a vehicle”. On the right side I chose my variable “car approaching” and make it true. I then put in a delay of 10 seconds. This is giving time for my grandma or nervous robber to drive to the second sensor.  I then tell the variable to go back to false.

Now I go to my sensor “close to house” on the left side of composer and choose “senses a vehicle”. On the right I choose my variable “car approaching” and set a conditional of true. (This confirms that a car set off the sensor close to the road first in the last 10 seconds, then this sensor which means the car is approaching the house not leaving). I then tell it to email me that a car arrived.

Next I put in the conditional variable we created at the beginning-If driveway sensor on is true. (now everything indented under this will only occur if this variable is true. If I make it false by hitting the button on my 7 inch touch screen then the rest won’t occur thus turning my driveway sensor off. Now comes the fun part of programming the TV’s to tune into my camera and then after a set amount of time return to their previous state. I did this for all my TV’s, but we will focus on the living room tv for this write-up. I tracked what video source was playing in my living room by creating a Boolean variable for each source as you can see in the image below plus one for the TV itself. If the tv was off we tell the tv variable to be true. For each video source if it was the current source in the living room it will cause its variable to become true.

Now I tell the system to select “Panasonic camera” which is the bl-wv10a as the video source in the living room. Then I tell it to enter 0 on the “Panasonic camera” which brings up a list of my cameras. Then tell it to enter 3 which selects my driveway camera. Now my tv turns onto a live feed of my driveway. (I do this same thing for my front door camera when the door bell is pressed except enter 0 for the list of cams then 1 for the front door cam.) I then tell it to pause all my video equipment so the kids don’t miss any part of the cartoon that they have probably already seen 100 times. I also added some programming to play an announcement when someone pulls up and to turn on all my front lights if it’s night time. I have a timer restart after this to turn these lights off after 30 minutes. I then put in a delay of 3 minutes which is plenty of time for me to see who is here and what they are doing.

Here is a video of my wife finally coming home.
 

Now I tell the system to change my tv back to it’s previous state by asking which variable is true, and if it is to make it the video source for the living room and to press play. If the tv variable is true that means the tv was previously off so I tell it to turn the tv back off. This way my tv doesn’t stay on when we aren’t at home and UPS drops off my latest C4 purchase from The SOHO Shop.

Lastly I need to reset each video and tv variable back to false.

Besides just emailing and knowing someone arrived by announcement and tv there are other cool things that can be done. I also have it programmed that if a car arrives and the alarm is set and it’s night time to turn on the hallway and kitchen lights since most likely it is us coming home. I also created a timer to turn these lights off in 30 minutes when this occurs just in case it’s not us coming home. I programmed the timer to stop if the garage door opens since this will confirm that it is us, and I won’t want the kitchen light going off in 30 minutes. I also did the reverse and chose the 2 driveway sensors and chose when “stops sensing a vehicle” so I can tell when someone leaves by making the “car leaving” variable true, then delay, then false on the sensor “close to house”. Then put the programming on the sensor “close to road” that I want to occur if variable “car leaving” is true. I have programmed it to close all the garage doors if “car is leaving” and the alarm is armed.

Video using a 6 button to access and change my cameras.
 

I’m sure there are other applications you could do with this that I haven’t thought of yet.

Hope you enjoyed
Pharmdsmith

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