Laundrymate

Intention

My wife and I live in an apartment house with a shared laundry area. Seemingly nine times out of ten, when either of us go to the basement with a full basket of laundry, we find that the machines are in use. In speaking with friends and colleagues, this seems to be a common occurrence, with many people sharing stories of first checking if the machines are in use, and then running back and forth to their apartment to get their basket of laundry. The purpose of Laundry-mate is to eliminate this hassle.

Goal

Laundry-mate monitors the status of machines in a shared space, and reports data to its user indicating if the machines are available or in-use.

Process

I designed  the prototype using the techniques we learned in class.

1. I determined which sensors would be needed to collect data on machine usage. 

2. At first, I planned to use an accelerometer, as it has the ability to detect movement in any direction. 

3. I researched on sparkFun to find examples of code.

4. After building the circuits and writing the code, I needed to get a visual readout of the data being provided by the accelerometer, as it is not a simple on/off, but rather, a continuous stream of changing data.

5. With some help from Daragh and Robert, I was able to troubleshoot the serial monitor connection and get a visual readout of data from the accelerometer.

6. Unfortunately, the data provided was not precise enough to be used for this purpose - the readout fluctuated, and when testing it on a (vibrating) in-use washing machine, the readout offered very little difference than standalone "not-in-use" data, so I needed to re-think the sensor usage and go back to the drawing board.

7. Luckily, a fast-vibration sensor proved to be not only easier to wire, and code, but also more accurate for this particular use-case.

8. After adding a simple LED light as an indicator for the vibration sensor, I added particle.publish to the code to push the use data to the web

Original Code for Accelerometer:

Final code for vibration sensor:

Circuits

Outcome

The initial breadboard prototype works perfectly. When stuck to the washing machine, it indicates whether or not the machine is in use. With the prototype, a user is able to check the status remotely at console.particle.io

Next Steps

The next steps to make this into a useful product would be to decide how to display the information in a useful way. Requiring a user to pull out their phone, log on to a website or open an app, select a device, etc. just to see the machine state is rather cumbersome when compared to an ambient display. Perhaps a small, tangible display of sorts, like a picture frame on the wall near the cellar stairs or a small figure or statue placed on a bookshelf can display the single-pixel data in a playful way that is non-obtrusive. Designing an enclosure for the particle and sensor would be a relatively straightforward process - a simple box with an adhesive strip, allowing it to stick to the side of the washing machine would suffice, but again, making it more playful can perhaps bring a bit of joy to the tedium of doing the laundry.

Reflection

The most challenging part of this process was trying to get useful information from the accelerometer. Ultimately this proved moot, but taught me about the capabilities and limitations of various sensors. The inexpensive and simple fast vibration sensor was all that was needed.

As a graduate student with little to no "free" time, my wife ultimately takes care of doing the laundry for both of use. In discussing this idea with her and showing her the results of the working prototype, she said, "This is great! I can't wait to use it."

References and Acknowledgements

Thank you to Dr. Daragh Byrne, and T.A.'s Taylor, Dylan, and Robert for your help, motivation, and inspiration

The code examples used for the accelerometer came from:

SFE_MMA8452Q Library Basic Example Sketch

Jim Lindblom @ SparkFun Electronics

Original Creation Date: June 3, 2014

https://github.com/sparkfun/MMA8452_Accelerometer

Development environment specifics:

IDE: Arduino 1.0.5

Hardware Platform: Arduino Uno

**Updated for Arduino 1.6.4 5/2015**

This code is beerware; if you see me (or any other SparkFun employee) at the

local, and you've found our code helpful, please buy us a round!

Distributed as-is; no warranty is given.