I need a little help with an office project I'm working on. The entire office shares a single bathroom on the other end of the hall, and it totally sucks to get up and walk all the way over only to find it occupied.
How would you all suggest creating a set up that detects the occupancy (I was thinking perhaps a magnet on the door and a hall sensor) and wireless turning on a centrally located "occupancy light" that can be seen from all the desks?
Wow, we only have a shower at work, and you have a bath!
I think swarmandsing may be a North American
I think you have got the makings of a viable solution.
How big is the office? (Just wondering about the distance the wireless has to travel.)
Have you got power in a convenient location, or do you need to power the door sensor from a battery?
What would you do if one person entered as another left (one door event, but the state of the bathroom hasn't changed, it is still occupied)?
You might want to consider using a Passive Infrared (PIR) sensor as well to detect movement inside the room, to reduce the chances of that confusing the system.
Just as an alternative, do you all have PC's? You might get an ethernet or WiFi interface too, and have your occupancy sensor tweet ;D
HTH
GB
(AWOL, did you notice I didn't mention gas sensors? :))
