Level: Technical

Abstract:

When I moved in to my brand new apartment in a newly constructed high-rise, I was intrigued – it was designed with smart home functionality in mind and every light, power socket, window blind was remote controlled in addition to push-buttons placed around the rooms. Also all HVAC and bathroom floor heating functions were interfaced as well.

Besides the DIN-rail mounted relays and PLCs the heart of the user interface was a wall-mounted tablet: every one of the 128 apartments had a Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 P5210 configured with Android apps for smart home control, apartment doorbell and IP intercom. We were given a basic user interface manual but no technical docs, so I set out on figuring how it all works.

Additionally, I explain how I enabled free remote access for my neighbors, starting with learning more about how the smart apartments’ systems worked and then doing two iterations: first requiring each neighbor to buy a Raspberry Pi and the second making it completely software-based (thanks to python-for-android), free, and self-serve.

Bio:

Marko Štamcar – Head of laboratory @ Slovenian Computer History Museum, previously: Senior Android Developer and Release Manager @ Outfit7 (Ekipa2 d.o.o. subsidiary)

Posted on Thursday, August 15th, 2024 at 6:42 pm in talks | rss feed for comments| Both comments and pings are currently closed.