Hi everyone. I’m new to the forum, but I’ve been watching SuperHouseTV on YouTube for a couple of years now. I was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s disease about 10 years ago, and in that time I’ve had 2 brain surgeries; in which I have had 2 implants, known as DBS (Deep Brain Stimulator), installed in my brain/body. This fact is what causes me to need constant, or near constant, assistance; due to falling, freezing up, or whatever the case may be. So what I’m looking to do, if at all possible, is coming up with a system that has a device which I can carry around the house with me, and that I can push a button, or if I fall it can automatically trigger an alarm, on either a single, or possibly even multiple, receivers somewhere in the house.
I’m sincerely moved by your situation and I hope you are well. In addition to having a keen interest in home automation, I also work for a company that makes products for disabled people. We have a product called Raizer that might be of interest to you, as it helps fallen people get up again, perhaps you should take a look at that at Liftup.dk. We have customers that get up in their own with the Raizer. But to your question: if you don’t already have a home automation system in place, you might look into the emergency call function of iPhone and Apple Watch. The Apple Watch has a build in fall detection feature that detects a fall and calls for help and the function can also be triggered manually by just pressing the side button five times. I believe that might be good solution in your situation. Best of luck.
You might consider something like these:
They have relays and you can basically hook anything you want to them. The four buttons could be used for different things like “Immediate assistance” versus “Stop by when you have a chance” and an extra button as a tester that you can hit to verify it is working.
You can put lights or a siren on the other side of the relay, and pick up some extra sets so you have multiple ‘base stations’ around the house - one upstairs, one downstairs.
As I think about this more, you may want a latching relay. So one quick press of the button would latch a relay and another button must be pressed to unlatch it. This way, the alarm stays on indefinitely after you’ve pressed the button. You could do this through rewiring the relay module, using three of the relays.
Relay #1 is the “Push to make”, Relay #3 is the “Push to Break”, and Relay #2 is the output relay which gets latched ON from a momentary pulse.
You have to use 3/4 of the relays to do this, but it would be a pretty darn simple way to get the desired result without even any programming required. It even comes with an enclosure. You would have to cut some traces on the PCB and add your own jumpers, but once you put the case on you’d have a decent looking project.
I /think/ that the receiver has an overall ‘output’ status pin which becomes active when it receives a signal that you could tie into an Arduino or Raspberry Pi, or even forget the relays altogether and get the non-relay version and run right into a micro-controller. Either way would work.
The schematic above shows 5V but I think the board is actually 12V. You may need to trigger the fourth relay from #2 to get true “dry” contacts which are electrically isolated. For this circuit to work, the contact voltage must be the same as the coil voltage.
In industrial applications where this circuit is used, they have relays with an extra set of contacts so you don’t need the fourth relay. They also typically use pushbuttons instead of relays as inputs.