Gas sensing bulb

The idea

The idea was born when i moved in into a new house. The house (where i'm still living) is heated by a furnace powered with a natural gas (methane). Unfortunately, in the room where the furnace is installed there is no gas alarm. Morover – there is no possibility to install it without a need of cutting a hole in the wall – to put there wires connected to the alarm and power, because there are no wireless gas sensors.

Because i hate of doing all types of repairs at home i tried to find another solution. I've noticed two things. First, the natural gas has a tendency to concentrate at the highest point of the room (under a ceiling). Second, at the highest point there is usually a bulb used to illuminate the room.

My idea of a „Gas Sensing Bulb” is a combination of these two findings. A bulb which serves as a regular bulb and as a gas sensor. Thanks to this fact, that installation and a use of such device is extremely easy – the only thing you need to do is screwing in a light bulb – it should become popular and protect thousands of houses before explosions and fire.

The idea is simple – but there is one big problem with it : What if a user turns off the light? In such case the detector won't work because backup battery won't last for long – gas sensors are quite power consuming devices. To avoid such problem the bulb is equipped with a movement detector – it lights only when it detects movements. If it doesn't see any movement – the light is turned off but the sensor still works. To avoid turning off the light – the bulb will remind (using voice emitted by the bulb's speaker) at the moment of switching off about necessity of leaving the bulb turned on (for example it can say - „Please don't turn off the light if you want to keep the gas sensor working. The light will be turned off automatically just after you'll leave the room”). Usually, gas furnaces are located in separate „technical” room where such approach is fully acceptable. Of course, the bulb can be also switched off and on from a smartphone using BT connection.

The solution

Details of a proposed solution are depicted on the diagram. The bulb contains following parts:

• gas sensor – popular and cheap methane sensor (for example – a TGS2611 series made by Figaro). The sensor is powered from the mains.

• control unit – main processor responsible for controlling all components of the bulb. It doesn't have to be a powerfull processor – it is still just a bulb ;-)

• WiFi module – it is one of the most important parts of the device. Thanks this, the system is able to send a message to an owner of the house or to a fire brigade about a leakage. This message should rather be sent directly (as an SMS, email or even a phone call using a sythesized voice) to a person. Thanks this connection the device can send also results of regular measurements to the cloud – where they can be analysed. This feature may be used for example in industry, where sometimes the presence of a gas is something normal and should be monitored.

• Speaker – is responsible for alerting people about a fact of leakage and for emmission of remainders.

• White leds – used as in a regular LED bulb

• Red leds – used to alert people about a detected gas leakage

• Blue leds – used to inform about a lack of power supply – if the bulb start emitting blue blink it means, that the sesnor doesn't work properly – so you cannot be sure, whether the compartment is safe

• Backup battery – provides an energy in case of a lack of power supply

• Power Line Communication module – it is an optional component – it might be used to communicate with other bulbs through power lines which is in some cases better solution than using for this purpose a BT or WiFi link.

• BT module – used in communication with a smartphone or other bulbs (it can for example turn on other C-Life bulbs located in the same room after detection ofa movement)

• Movement detector – detects movements in a room – used to turn on and turn off the light

Here is a proposed location of sensors in the bulb:

Features:

• it lights

• it detects movements – it is able to turn on and turn off the light whenever it is needed

• it detects gas leakages – it informs about it users using sound from internal speaker, red light emitted by built-in red diodes and through web – using variety of possible ways provided by the internet (sms, emails, voice calls etc.)

• it informs users about is state – using sound, red and blue leds and of course WiFi connection

Possible versions:

• the cheapest one – consist only of gas sensor, control unit, movement detector, backup battery, speaker and all kinds of leds mentioned before. It may be used in cases where users don't want to send information about a leakages through internet. Thanks the low cost it can be a very popular device.

• the medium level – identical like the cheapest one with one addition – it contains also a BT module. This version can be used in industry to create a network of detectors – sample network can be created from one fully euqipped bulb (master) and several those from the medium level (slaves). In this scenario bulbs from the medium level will send information about any problems to the master and the master will raise an alert.

• the most complictaed – it contains all components mentioned in the description of the solution and provides full functionality of the device to the user.