Room me

RoomMe is the first-ever professional presence detection solution for homes. It works locally and does not rely on internet connectivity which makes it highly robust.

It does not use image, video or speech recordings so it does not compromise your privacy and security. It does not rely on motion so you do not need to keep moving to room me your presence and it never thinks that your dog is you. It is patented and award winning, b ut above all, RoomMe takes home living, ​ to the future. When you're away from home and get an emergency alarm, such as water leak, smoke alarm or gas leak alarm, you want to know, as quick as possible, who's at home, might be at risk and can help resolve the emergency.

​ RoomMe works with voice assistants to provide you with the ability to ask who is at home, and get a fast answer. RoomMe offers intelligent monitoring that frees you from room me daily concern about your child's home return. Instead of you manually checking that you child has returned home, RoomMe can verify that your child has checked into a certain room at home during daily defined hours, and alert you only when your child does not return home on time.

1 of 3 adults at the ages of 65+ fall every year. 1 of 5 falls end up with broken bone or head injury. RoomMe offers aging in place parents pendant-free and shame-free protection. ​ RoomMe can monitor the presence of family members in specific rooms, during room me time frames, to detect when a family member becomes inactive and alert another family member or care giver. ​ Intelligent automation for fall prevention ​ One of the main causes of falling is the need for seniors to reach appliances in dark conditions.

​ RoomMe makes aging in place's home a safer place by connecting with an existing smart home and smart light systems to automatically turn the light and other home appliances on and off based on presence.

• In the box - RoomMe sensor, quick start guide, mounting kit including 3M Command strips for effortless, zero-damage mounting. • Sensor color - Matt white. • Sensor dimensions: • Diameter: 5.98 in / 15.2 cm. • Height: 1.77 in / 4.5 cm. • Mounting: • Location - Flat and horizontal ceiling. Diagonal ceiling not supported. • Flush mount: Fllush mounts available through Wall-Smart and sold separately. • Power source: • Two D-Type alkaline batteries (not included) for estimated 2-3 years of operation.

• Optional POE/12V Adaptor (sold separately). • Wireless room me Bluetooth Low Energy 4.0. • Compatibility: • iPhone with iOS v12 and up. • Android v8 and up. • Max. number of users: 32.​ • Max. number of rooms / sensors: 32. • Cost: Free. Available on Google Play Store and iOS App Store for download. • Integrations: • Direct control of Philips Hue, Sonos, Ecobee, Sensibo, Insteon, Harmony.​ • IFTTT for presence-based IFTTT applet triggering.

• Presence-based automation scenes triggering for HomeSeer via HomeSeer official driver room me Control4, Elan, RTI, URC via RoomMe drivers by Chowmain Software. • Open API for 3rd party integrations. To operate, RoomMe requires the RoomMe app to be running on users' smartphones at all times (in the background), Bluetooth to be ON on users' smartphones and that users' smartphones be connected to the home WiFi network or cellular network (depends on the type of integrations used).

​ ​ RoomMe is not an emergency or medical device and must not be used for room me purposes. RoomMe identifies who is in the room by the registered smartphones of family members and integrates with your smart home to tell it when family members enter or leave a room.

​ Now, instead of family members talking, using an app or a touch screen to manually run automations that set room devices to their personal liking, your smart home can automatically run these automations based on who has entered the room.

​ And when family members leave the room, your smart home can automatically run an automation to turn devices OFF. RoomMe brings powerful artificial intelligence that determines, at real time, based on who's preferences, of all room occupants, room devices need to be set.

​ Triggering person-specific automations by presence room me an amazing experience which can quickly become a disaster when several family members are in the room, and your smart home can not decide based on who's preferences room devices need to be set.

As family members enter and leave the room, RoomMe tells your smart home room me on who's preferences room devices need to be set. When the last family member leaves the room, RoomMe tells your smart home that it's time to turn things off. To decide which family member controls the room, RoomMe implements real-life behavior by giving priority to parents over children while also considering who has longer presence time.

RoomMe uses an intelligent priority system to dynamically decide who of all present people controls a room. When programming the RoomMe system, you define every user as either a parent or a child: ​ • When several people are in a room, RoomMe gives control priority to parents before children.

• When two parents are in a room or several children are in a room, Room me gives priority by user type and then by the time of entry - whoever entered the room earlier, gets priority first. ​ In addition to the parent/child priority, every room can be defined with a "room master" - one user which whenever present, gets control priority for the room, regardless of being a parent or a child.

The challenge of developing a true smart home has always been for the systems in the home to anticipate the needs of the occupants. Actions in a smart home have typically been triggered by time and motion.

Unfortunately, time-based actions are inflexible and motion sensors can only go so far because they aren’t capable of identifying individual people in the home. After a successful Indiegogo campaign and almost two years of development, Intellithings has taken a significant step forward in this area with the release of their RoomMe Personal Location Sensor. RoomMe sensors are mounted on the ceiling, at the entrances to each room in a home, where smart devices are located.

Typically this would include bedrooms, the living room, the kitchen, an office, and other primary living spaces. RoomMe will then monitor the movements of people within the home. Scenes can then be programmed, through the RoomMe app, to be triggered when individuals enter and exit the rooms where RoomMe sensors have been installed. These scenes can include personalized changes to lighting, temperature, and music.

For example, RoomMe could: • Trigger smart lighting to turn on, to a specific level, when a homeowner enters a room and turn off once the room is no longer occupied. • Adjust a thermostat to set the room’s temperature based on the preferences of the occupant. The thermostat could also be set back to save energy after everyone has left the room.

• Play an individual’s personal playlist when they enter a room. A person’s personal music could even be programmed to follow them as they walked through their home. Obviously, conflicts can occur when multiple people are in a room. RoomMe handles this through a priority scheme.

There are three tiers of priority: • Child • Parent • Room Master If a child enters an empty room then the lighting, music, and temperature can be set based on their preferences.

If additional children enter the room the settings of the first child that entered will be maintained. However, if an adult, who has a higher priority, enters the room then the settings will change to the preferences of the adult. Similarly, if additional adults enter a room, then the settings of the first adult that entered the room will be maintained. The exception to the above rules are that if the person designated as the “room master” enters a room their settings will take priority over anyone room me in the room; even if they are a child and there are adults in the room.

This is useful for giving a child’s preferences priority in their own bedroom or in a designated play area. This system room me well thought, out but not perfect. For example, if children are playing in the living room and a parent walks into the room, just to see if they would like a snack, then the music the children were listening to will be shut off and the parent’s music will start playing. This will occur room me if the parent had no intention of interrupting the children’s activities.

RoomMe does all this by detecting the presence, not of the actual person, but the person’s smart phone using Bluetooth. This room me that for RoomMe to operate the occupants of a home need to always carry their smart phones. According to Oren Kotlicki, founder and CEO of Intellithings, 90-percent of the people between the ages of 24 and 45 have a smart phone with them 22 hours a day.

However, it is important for someone considering installing RoomMe to understand that they will need to keep their smart phones with them for the system to operate.

Some people might feel that having to carry their smart phone all the time for the system to work is a burden. Room me, being able to stop RoomMe from sensing a person simply by putting down their smart phone is also an advantage. The problem of an adult entering a room and disrupting their children because their priority is higher can be solved by the parent simply putting down their smart phone before they enter the room. Installation The RoomMe sensors easily mount to the ceilings of a home with a small bracket.

While physical installation is simple, RoomMe requires careful planning to determine the optimal locations for sensors in a home. Intellithings created a video to help people with this room me. Up to 32 RoomMe sensors can be installed in a home. Under ideal circumstances this would translate to RoomMe being able to monitor people’s locations in 32 different rooms. However, large rooms with multiple entrances/exits will probably require a RoomMe to be installed at each doorway. So, the practical limit to the number of rooms that can be monitored by RoomMe, in a home, will typically be smaller than 32.

Positioning of RoomMe sensors in doorways is dependent on the height of the ceiling at that location. The higher a ceiling is the farther apart RoomMe sensors need to be placed, or conflicts will occur between sensors, and there will be confusion as to where an individual is in the home. To avoid these conflicts, RoomMe sensors need to be separated by 1.2 times the ceiling height.

So for example, if the ceiling height is 10 feet then RoomMe sensors need to be placed 12 feet apart. It should also be noted that RoomMe sensors must be mounted horizontal to the floor to operate properly.

If a sensor needs to be mounted to a vaulted ceiling, a wedge shaped bracket will need to be fabricated. Integration RoomMe includes a wealth of integration possibilities. Even though this is the first release of RoomMe Intellithings has integrated with: • Phillips Hue • Ecobee • Sonos • Lifx • Sensibo • Bose • HomeKit • Wink • Control4 • Elan • RTI • URC In addition, Intellithings has released a public API so additional integrations can be created.

I have developed modules to integrate RoomMe with a Crestron automation processor that are available to readers on my GitHub here. The RoomMe app provides the ability to create “magic charms” that will execute when person enters, or exits, a specific room. The charm defines a personalized scene including lighting, temperature, and music settings.

Room me, when RoomMe is integrated with a smart home processor/hub much more sophisticated actions can be programmed. For example: • The light from sunlight shining in through windows can be used to determine if turning on lights is necessary when someone enters a room.

Lights might only be turned on a night or could be turned on during the day if the weather is cloudy. • When a homeowner enters their bathroom, in the morning, on a work day, a TV could be turned on and tuned to their favorite news channel so they can catch up on what is happening in the world before heading to work.

• Shades could be opened when room me enters a room to take advantage of sunlight; but only if the sun isn’t directly shining on the windows to minimize glare • Data can be integrated from other systems in decision making.

For example, if GPS data from your car says that you have been to the grocery store, and RoomMe senses that you have just entered the home, pathway lights to the kitchen could be turned on instead of the typical lighting scene specified in your preferences.

This will alleviate the challenge of trying to turn on the kitchen lights when you are carrying bags of groceries. • Scenes could be modified based on time. For example, when RoomMe detects that someone enters a room, late at night, the lights in the room could be turned on to a very dim, night light level. This would allow the person to safely walk through the room but the lights would be low enough not to disturb other people in the home that are sleeping.

In addition, music, based on the individual’s preferences, would not be played. • To keep scenes from being executed when a person is simply walking through a room to another room me in the home, a delay could be incorporated.

The delay would require a person to stay in a room for a period of time before their personal lighting/music/temperature scene executed. This would, for example, keep a thermostat set point from being adjusted multiple times, triggering the furnace or air conditioner to start, when a change of the room’s temperature wasn’t needed.

• Digital artwork is becoming a popular room me to a home. Products, such as the Samsung’s Frame TV, have helped homeowners leverage their TV’s as art pieces. RoomMe’s ability to detect who is occupying a room could be used to match the artwork being displayed with the preferences of the people in the room. Hands on with RoomMe Intellithings provided me with a RoomMe starter kit for writing this article and to facilitate development of a RoomMe Room me module based on their API.

I found that the product worked well. I was able to easily integrate the 2 sensors with a pair of Sonos speakers and come very close to room me magic of having music follow me from room to room. Most of the magic is accomplished by RoomMe app on your smart phone (in my case I tested it on my iPhone). A negative is that not only does the app have to be installed on your phone but it must be running in memory with background app refresh turned on.

If you were to swipe up on the app, removing it from memory and stopping its execution, the system would stop working. As I stated earlier, careful planning is required when deciding where to install the RoomMe sensors.

They can only be mounted on the ceiling facing straight downward and adequate spacing is very important. Once installed, there is a calibration process for each cell phone that will be tracked by the RoomMe sensors. First, the person needs to hold their cell phone directly beneath a sensor. Next the person is directed to stand at the doorway to the next room so RoomMe can understand the room me of that sensor’s coverage. Each person must repeat this process for each RoomMe sensor in the home.

Notifications can be enabled in the RoomMe app to provide feedback on what the RoomMe system is “seeing”. It was interesting to see that as you walk from one room me to the next the RoomMe system is very quick to see a person enter a new room. However, there was a noticeable delay in the system reporting that the person had exited the previous room.

This translated to music very quickly turning on to the users defined preference in the new room but a noticeable delay before it was turned off in the previous room. The “charms” that are created using the app to make user adjustments to music/lights/temperature, when a person enters, or exits, a room, are simple to create. I had no problem creating charms room me select specific music to play on the Sonos speaker in a room when I entered and to have the Sonos speaker stop playing when I exited.

It should be noted that the system doesn’t allow you to start music playing in a room using the Sonos app and then have that music selection automatically follow you when you move to another room.

RoomMe can’t read what was playing in one room and then duplicate that selection in another room. However, this will be changing in the future as Intellithings has developed a new way of interfacing with Sonos speakers to create a more seamless experience. There were several times in my testing that the Room me app became unstable and needed to be restarted.

Given how new, and unique, this product is, that is somewhat understandable. Intellithings is continually working on bug fixes and room me on making further enhancements to the system over time. Finally, it should also be noted that I noticed faster battery drain on my iPhone when testing RoomMe.

Given the intensity of testing I was doing, especially when working to debug the Crestron module I was writing, it was difficult to quantify the exact increase in battery drain that a casual user would experience. But, it makes sense that there would be some additional drain given all the Bluetooth communications work that the RoomMe app has to perform as it connects/disconnects from the various RoomMe sensors.

However, when my phone was sitting idle on my desk and not communicating with the RoomMe sensors, I didn’t notice any increase in battery drain even though the RoomMe app was running in the background.

Implementation Costs A starter kit, consisting of two RoomMe sensors is available for $129 from RoomMe’s online store. Three packs and four packs are also available. A three bedroom home with a living room and kitchen could easily require: • One RoomMe at the entry to each bedroom • One RoomMe at the entry to the kitchen • One RoomMe in a hallway that connects the bedrooms to determine when people have left the bedroom • Three RoomMe sensors in the living room • One at the entry to the hallway going to the bedrooms • One at the home’s front door • One at room me entry to the kitchen So, a simple three bedroom home could require eight RoomMe sensors at a cost of $478 with the included free shipping.

So, while individual RoomMe sensors aren’t very expensive, the cost to provide sensor coverage of an average home can quickly add up. Suggestions for Improvement Even in its initial room me, RoomMe is an excellent product.

However, there are ways I believe the product could be further improved.

• Outdoor version. Outdoor living is an important part of today’s lifestyle. Walking outside should be able to trigger outdoor lighting and music. • I would liked to have seen a light sensor included in the product so lights could be turned on when a person enters a room only when there isn’t adequate room me already available in the room.

For example, there is no sense turning on the lights in a room during the middle of the day when the sun is streaming in through the windows.

According to Oren Kotlicki, this is on their product roadmap but not available in the initial release of the product. • Programmable Delays – Many rooms in a home are both living spaces and used as connections between other rooms.

It would be nice if a delay could be programmed so that scenes aren’t triggered when a person is simply walking through one room to get to another. I described that this could be done through the integration of a third party smart home processor/hub.

However, it would be a welcome feature to be included in the RoomMe app. • SmartThings is a very popular smart home hub and integration with that platform would be a welcome addition.

• IFTTT integration would allow RoomMe to integrate with many more platforms than Intellithings is capable integrating with on their own. • RoomMe sensors have an expected battery life of 3 years. For new construction a wired version would be a welcome addition to room me the need of replacing batteries. • Currently RoomMe sensors are made of smooth, white plastic that can’t be painted. Changing to a paint-able plastic would help the sensors be more “designer friendly” as would a version that mounts flush within a hole in the ceiling.

Both of these changes would allow RoomMe to be less intrusive in the décor of a room. • Currently RoomMe can detect a person’s identity through their smart phone. It would be a nice improvement if this detection technology could be expanded to wearables; such as a smart watch. • Include the ability to narrow the size of the detection area for rooms with high ceilings.

Having to place RoomMe sensors12 feet apart in homes with 10 foot ceilings (that are becoming very common in new home construction) can cause problems when trying to determine the best locations to mount RoomMe sensors.

In a room with tall, vaulted ceilings, positioning RoomMe sensors can even be more of a challenge. Summary In my article “ How to Use AI to Control Your Smart Home” I discussed the importance of sensors in the room me generation of smart homes. RoomMe is an important step forward in that direction. For a smart home to truly be able to take actions based on the needs of the homeowners, it needs to, at a minimum, understand where they are in a home.

Unfortunately, there is room me no way for the smart home to understand the intent of a homeowner when they enter a room. So, when someone enters the home’s kitchen there is no way for the smart home system to know whether this is to begin cooking a meal or just to grab a quick snack. The homeowner might not even need the light in the kitchen turned on if all they are going to do is open the refrigerator to grab a piece of fruit.

In the future, machine learning may help a smart home to better understand people’s intent and to fully take actions that anticipate people’s needs. Today, RoomMe takes us a step closer to that goal.

Jay Basen Jay Basen has been a home automation hobbyist for over 30 years and has worked professionally in the industry for almost 20 years. His professional background is electrical engineering and software development. He has a master's degree in engineering and has been writing software professionally for over 40 years.

To read more of Jay's articles, visit his blog http://topicsinhomeautomation.blogspot.com/