CS.72 – Home Monitoring System

• Andy Bard

Homeowners frequently encounter anxiety or concerns over the functioning of parts of their home that they might not be able to easily observe directly. A failed sump pump can result in major damage that must be addressed quickly to prevent more extensive damage. It can be difficult to determine the start time of a power outage or even detect that an outage has occurred while the owners are away from the home. Discarding food and potentially temperature-sensitive medications is costly and wasteful. While commercial products exist for some of these goals and open source projects exist for some, a single, extensible system would provide an easier user experience, which in turn makes it even easier to achieve peace of mind. The home monitoring system is an extensible platform for providing a web insterface for monitoring critical aspects of a home. This implementation includes monitoring for both a sump pump and for household power outages. Using an arduino mega as a central hub and a raspberry pi for web connectivity, this project allows for different arduino uno based monitor modules so as to provide a way to extend it with additional sensors in the future. By having both a central hub for checking status and clearing alarms and a web application for checking the status of all monitors via home local network, this project aims to provide improved peace of mind and visibility to critical parts of the home.