Hi everyone.
My project is only being started but its very important to myself but more importatnt to my partner. In saying that, I feel that HA can offer a lot to people with special needs.
My partner has Dissociative identity disorder , formerly referred to as multiple personality disorder.
So I began automating the house etc to help her with everyday tasks. In regards to this a lot of you have been providing bits and pieces of code and help. In a awy I would like to return this to the community if I can so I can perhaps help others.
Some of the things I am working on are
Reading Google calendar to find her next tasks/appointments and providing reminders to her.
Making it easy for her to change settings etc like tempretures as for in her case, one of the personalities cant read or write so we are utilizing Google Home Mini and Alexa etc
Detecting when she is not home and checking the doors are locked etc. One of the personalities has OCD and leaving the house becomes a huge task in checking locks etc
Making it easy to turn lights on and off to go to the loo. 3 persoanlities are children so the adults go to bed and turn off all lights and the kids wake up in the same bed room etc and want to make it kid freindly so they know to use words etc and chat to Alexa
So i do the usual things and detect movemets etc with Z-Wave multisensors. In my case being on a farm I use power monitoring of outlets such as on the pressure pump and node-red to check wether the pump is continualy running suggesting a broken pipe and thus emptying our limited water storage. But most of the work is looking at how can I make her day to day life a lot better.
So I am after input from others that can offer thier own issues and solutions. Mental health is not to be sneezed at and we can all help.
Get in touch, comment and suggest. I am truly interested.
I predict that TTS will be a big part of the system. Is there a prefered option for TTS? I have a Google and an Alexa to play with and tinkering with both. I have found a way of getting a value into HA in a round about way to use as a tempreture set point but I have had the google unit a while. New to the Alexa but am tending to like some of its functions.
Providing voices coming out of nowhere does not seem, to a layman, to be helpful to someone with mental stability issues. But, as you say, it depends on individual circumstances, and if the health professionals think it will help, then you have to follow their advice.
Yes I understand what your question s now. In her case she hates the silence. She has had this all her life. Her youngest alter is 3 and she is 42 so 39 years. Herdescription last night to add here is imagine a boardroom of 13 people discussing a issue. Thats what its like for her. Silence is what she hates.
What I am trying to do I guess is help her co-exist. But as an example lets say Jaz (yes each alter has a name) makes an appointment for say a hair cut. but doesnt inform anyone else but an hour before the hair cut she changes to say Faith. She doesnt go as Faith doesnt know about the hair cut. So I am working on them using a calandar etc for that. But in the case of home and HA. Faith is cold and put the heater on. Changes to JD. Jd goes to the shops an dleaves the heater on as she didnt know its being used. So if she is away etc, the heater now turns off etc.
Simple things to all of us but to them its hard. Thats where HA etc is becoming a great assett.
May I suggest Traccar as an alternative for device tracking. You can use it in the cloud. I would then look at getting a (cheap) watch from Aliexpress which will do things like tracking as well as can go as far as heart rate and possibly even other vitals?
Location is quite important to get home automation right. This way you are not reliant on her having a phone to know if she is at home or not…
There are also some custom component in HA which will then show you various items from the watch as attributes of the device tracker component in Home assistant…
Additionally, I am currently working with our government to select a solution for in-home care for vulnerable individuals. While not directly related, I would love to see what you come up with as well as help and support where I can…
From your description it’s like you have a lot of people with different tastes and preferences but only one “active” at a given time. So, I’m wondering if it would help to create different profiles or “modes” inside HA and activate each one based on the current alter. Each one could have a light, temperature/whatever settings. Maybe you can even let alexa asks who is at home and set things accordingly.
first i want to say how much i respect you for not giving up on a situation that must be very very hard from time to time.
if there is anything i can help with i will absolutely try.
i guess its very hard to tell which person she is on what moment. if there is any pattern at all (maybe only on 1 specific time a day) that would be helpfull to act on.
are all of her personalities able to click on an icon on a tablet?
because what clyra says can be very usefull.
if you got a tablet with an icon for all personalities, something that that personality like, and you give a positive trigger if they press that, you could get it so far that HA knows who is active at that point.
and if you know who is there you can program around that.
a positive trigger could be that if the button is pressed, that TTS speaks a friendly message. and with random you could make sure it stays interesting for her.
i know from experience that sometimes some things that happen can trigger a personality shift.
maybe that some words or texts have that effect and you can use TTS to get her in a more comfortable/able personality at some point.
let me know if i can help you in any way. programming, or just talking about ideas, feel free to reach out to me in PM or on discord.
Yep 13 at the current stage. All different ages, tastes etc. For the information of others its like having 13 identical people (not twins but not sure what the twins equivelent is for 13 ) so that is something I hadnt thought of as in the modes for different alters…
I’m very interested in how this can help people with mental health.
Were you able to teach the child personality to use Alexa?
Does the auto door lock eliminates the OCD personality’s need to recheck locks?
I like the meds checker. I will take a more detailed look at it.
Yes the children can use Alexa. They quite like it actually. It does depend on which child though and what they are trying to do. Still working on the door lock part. One of the things that I will have to work on is if I can get Alexa to query where I am by using zones etc. I got a call at 1am this morning to ask where I was as Angel didnt know I was away overnight on a work trip. Not necesarily a total HA solution but trying to keep it so I can use one system. I may end up using a tablet on the wall etc for a display of zones etc
Just an project update.
I had the 3 year old personality come out last night and tell me that Alexa listens to her so thats great. All the personalities are having positive experiences with the voice control.
I have incorporated presence detection and when she walks down the street etc al the lights etc turn off after a short delay. This means that if one personality has turned on something and they switch to another alter its sort off covered. It also turns off the heater etc
On returning to the home zone if after dark it will light up the entry area as she is a nervous person
I am still working on the thermostat via voice but have a tempory solution using an Alexa node and setting brightness as the temp. I have also created a wake up alarm that takes into consideration the travel time.
So we have a few things working well and some needing more work. Some are also based on HA and a couple simple routines etc via Alexa.
Some of my successes
When my partner goes to bed she tells Alexa bedtime and this dims her light to 5%, changes color to purple, starts a meditation mp3 I have uploaded and follows this up after its finished with Pink Floyd
I have a spare Google Mini in the lounge I use for Announcements and reminders. These mostly come from HA/Node-Red. I havent had any success using Alexa for announcements from HA/Node-Red
Using OWNTRACKS for presence when we are away from home all bits and pieces switch off. On coming home after dark it turns on Lounge lights so house is lit
We use a Ring Doorbell. We only get notified of door bell rings on the phone via RING. Movement is too active. However I tap into it via Node-Red and when we are away or its dark, we get movement emails
hello there,
I have read this now for multiple times. I loved some of the suggestions and we used some of them ourself in my setup. Did you create something since then? I can’t work with voice here, but symbols are a fine thing, it is not DID we’re facing here, but other mental issues that can be tackled by homeautomation. It came to me as a surprise how much can be made easier this way.
Greetings
) so that is something I hadnt thought of as in the modes for different alters…