Editing Front Door Project

A little project I'm thinking about - to replace the utterly useless doorbell I've got that I can't hear when I've got my headphones on. [http://xkcd.com/530/ mandatory xkcd link] == Sensors == * [http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?category=2&product_id=1104 Vibration Sensor] to detect when postbox is used. * [http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?category=2&product_id=1106 Force Sensor] for doorbell * [http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?category=2&product_id=1111 Motion Sensor] to detect whether person is still there * temperature sensor for outside temp logging * maybe RFID? == Hardware == * [http://stanford-clark.com/viglen.html Viglen MPC-L] - £79 low-power (10W) PC * [http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?category=1&product_id=1018 Phidgets 8/8/8 InterfaceKit] == Software == * the phidgets stuff can be written in C/C++ or Java, plus there are scripting language stuff to go on top ** [http://www.phidgets.com/information.php dox] ** [http://www.phidgets.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=6843&sid=6536f0d3cab2396efa85b245d4eb5df3 Ruby thread], [http://www.blackholelogic.com/2008/6/10/phidgets-and-ruby JRuby] ** [http://www.lothar.com/Projects/Phidgets/ Python library], [http://www.forwhatitworths.com/posts/2007/08/phidgets/ blog post] == What I want it to do == * Detect when someone pushes a doorbell * Detect when someone opens the letterbox, or when mail hits a pressure pad in the letterbox. * Detect when someone opens a door then... * the doorside box would transmit wirelessly to a main server * that server would fire off notifications to logged-in users on a handful of local boxes (XMPP, Growl protocol and SSH) ** [http://wiki.jabber.org/index.php/Jabber_Programmer%27s_Guide Jabber Programmer's Guide] ** those notifications could be playing audio, speaking (OS X: [http://www.manpagez.com/man/1/say/ say], Linux: [http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/ festival]), growl notifications * that server could also possibly use twitter w/shared updates * SMS * dump some statistics somewhere useful (e.g. number of times the bell is pressed and the door is not opened) * maybe use it to log delivery attempts - i.e. if someone tries to deliver something, we could actually see if they did ring the bell or not