Home security - web activated fog machine...

Other Hardware Home Automation
1

Hi,

just wanted to bounce a hypothetical off you guys.

say an industrial grade fog machine was connected to the central air system in a house.
then have an arduino connected to both the fogger and the web. a phone could run an application that connects to a webserver and essentially be able to send control packets to a framework that the arduino fog machine controller connects to.

if an alarm detects a break in from the house you'd get an alert on the phone which links to a webcam so you could see if theres actually someone there. then use the control application on the phone to engage the fog. which would basically just switch on the fogger and turn on the central air's main circulation fan and start pumping throughout the house.

this would start fogging out the house so the intruder couldnt see much. or the fogger could also be implemented in specific rooms only.

Anyone's input on this would be interesting.

2

You could esaily do this with a 2 relay board, one to turn the mains on or off and the other to trigger the smoke.

My only concerns would be the following.....

  1. Might leave an oily residue inside the aircon system and that might affect reliability of parts.
  2. Any smell would get into the aircon system and could permeate for a while, cleaning would be difficult due to the above.
  3. Smoke machines take a few minutes to heat up, so the burglar would have plenty of time (several minutes) before smoke was available. (unless the machines are powered on all the time, which I wouldn't recommend).
  4. If you do use smoke, use it locally with a small machine in each room. For added effect trigger a strobe as well. This would be blinding at night.

Skywatch.