Something to Consider
I've just had this thought. I'll elaborate further when I'm not about to go off into Uni!
If we have this technical home help system, what happens if there is a power cut? Will our system to be resilient against failure? We don't want all the alarms being set off when the power comes back on. Will the system have a memory system it can reload settings from? Will it have some sort of backup power supply?
We need to keep all these in consideration or the system might have fatal flaws!
EDIT:
So we discussed this in today's meeting, I'll summarise briefly!
How to deal with the Power Cut:
We considered the possibility of having a backup generator or something but decided that this was far too much overkill to run something that is essentially a sort of home security system. We decided batteries were unrealistic too as this is high-maintenance, requiring the users to buy batteries regularly. As a solution to this problem, we thought that some sort of residual capacity battery would work - as mains power goes off, this battery kicks in and lasts for about an hour or so - which would hopefully provide enough time for the power to go back on.
Preventing Alarms from Going Off:
We need an automatic method of reloading the settings so that a system reset does not occur and set all of the alarms off in one go. A delay in activating any alarms systems was suggested, leaving a period of perhaps 10 minutes for any settings to be reloaded and then turning on each alarm system one by one with a delay in each so that there isn't alarm overkill all at once. (Priority base the order)
Other Issues Raised:
If we have this technical home help system, what happens if there is a power cut? Will our system to be resilient against failure? We don't want all the alarms being set off when the power comes back on. Will the system have a memory system it can reload settings from? Will it have some sort of backup power supply?
We need to keep all these in consideration or the system might have fatal flaws!
EDIT:
So we discussed this in today's meeting, I'll summarise briefly!
How to deal with the Power Cut:
We considered the possibility of having a backup generator or something but decided that this was far too much overkill to run something that is essentially a sort of home security system. We decided batteries were unrealistic too as this is high-maintenance, requiring the users to buy batteries regularly. As a solution to this problem, we thought that some sort of residual capacity battery would work - as mains power goes off, this battery kicks in and lasts for about an hour or so - which would hopefully provide enough time for the power to go back on.
Preventing Alarms from Going Off:
We need an automatic method of reloading the settings so that a system reset does not occur and set all of the alarms off in one go. A delay in activating any alarms systems was suggested, leaving a period of perhaps 10 minutes for any settings to be reloaded and then turning on each alarm system one by one with a delay in each so that there isn't alarm overkill all at once. (Priority base the order)
Other Issues Raised:
- How much power will this system use? Elderly people have more heating and electric allowance in winter but we want it to be cheap to maintain so that it doesn't eat up loads of power.
- It was suggested that if the box (or however this device is contained) has one plug and all the sensors link to it either via wires or wireless, then space is saved by using one plug only. This is also a safety issue, saving any accidents from tripping on stray wires.
posted by A.Kennedy at 12:42:00 pm
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