Brian Gaff wrote

Yes a lot of blind people are using the dot, as they work weel and over
time it is no doubt going to be possible to operate a device outside this
way.

Seems to be rather overkill though. Its the human behaviour we need to
alter I think, trying to cater for every idiot out there is a thankless
task.

Trying to change human behaviour is an even more thankless
task, particularly with delivery apes who have a real incentive
to card you instead of pressing the bell or banging on the
door and waiting to see if you will answer the door.

Who was it who said as soon as you make something idiot proof, somebody
designs a better idiot?

That’s bull**** with this situation.

When you live alone, does it really matter if a PIR or
light beam does ring the bell when you come home ?

And even when you don’t live alone, its really no big
deal if it rings when you come home and quickly changes
to a different chime when you open the door immediately.

And a fancy system can work out its you from your
phone bluetooth and not ring at all when its you too
and can automatically open the door for you too.

Evolution again.


"RJH" wrote in message
news
On 29/12/2016 19:24, Brian Gaff wrote:
I and some of my friends, being vulnerable people are installing
wireless
door intercoms on our houses.
The problem with these devices is, that, unlike their wired brethren,
you
cannot instigate a conversation with the person at your door unless they
actually press the button on the device. Its a bloody big button, but
seemingly we have an issue of the people who do not like door bells,
who
persist on using rattling of letter boxes, banging on windows or using
door
knockers etc when, as we see it its bleedin obvious there is a bell
push.
Who are these increasingly frequent visitors, not the Police though
they do
seem to be one of the groups who do this, no its apparently sane
individuals.
So two answers. 1. try to find a door intercom that can instigate
comms
from inside that is not wired. Seemingly and perversely, not possible as
nobody does one unless you want to power the outside station from a wall
wart.
The reason is that the batteries would go down if it had to listen for
the
inside unit polling it.
The other option is to somehow convince callers to use the bell push and
only the bell push.
So if anyone has any bright ideas that do not involve 50,000 v on the
outside of the front door to 'discourage' the errant behaviour will be
accepted. Not sure if perhaps a big day glow arrow pointing to the bell
would work as its visible enough already.


I suspect that somewhere within the mire of the internet of things there
may be an answer.

I'm trying out an Amazon Echo and Samsung 'smartthings'. All I can say is
that the various 'things I've got do work very effectively, but I'm not
exactly a power user. Things like switching lights on/off, controlling
the heating, detecting doors open, movement. The Echo responds accurately
to my voice commands.

Within the smartthing app itself, and by extension the various forums,
many hundreds of permutations are set out/discussed. From a quick look
there are push/pull actions that can be triggered by proximity - not sure
which might work best for you.


--
Cheers, Rob