Recent media events regarding the damage done to the Albuquerque Public Schools due to frozen water pipes emphasizes the potential damage extreme cold weather can do to a building. Although not a media event, many homeowners returned after a long holiday vacation to find their homes flooded as well. A small broken pipe can cause tens of thousands of dollars in damage to not only a building, but it’s contents.
With the advent of i-phones people are able to remotely interface with their possessions on a much different level. Recent car commercials showing people starting and unlocking their car from an i-phone is an example of this.
When people leave for a vacation it is common for them to turn down their home thermostat to save energy. Unfortunately if extreme cold weather hits while gone, these lower thermostat settings may not keep all parts of the house above freezing. A failure of a heating system while gone can also spell disaster. If a homeowner could be alerted in case of a problem and make adjustments as needed, a flooded home could possibly be avoided.
The proposed solution for this issue is to design an i-phone accessible thermostat that could remotely alarm, be monitored (including a simple temperature history log), and be adjusted remotely. This initial project would consist of a simple heating only thermostat with a rudimentary user display for local access, an outside air temperature sensor and an RS-485 serial network connection, all run from embedded software. The serial port will connect to a PC computer that will act as a bridge to the Internet from which the i-phone can receive alerts, access data and manipulate settings. Future revisions might include embedding a wireless web server directly into the thermostat, but that is a bit too ambitious for the scope of this project.
The design team will need to be comprised of all levels of software engineers dealing with low level embedded software, serial driver development, web interface and finally i-phone application development.
This design may have possible patent opportunities. Real venture capital funds and hardware design support are available for hardware development portion of this project. The project will probably need to be supported by a 6-person team, two for embedded software, two for the PC web portal and two for the i-phone app.
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