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80FFTs Per Second To Detect Whistles (and Switch On Lights)

Posted by timothy on from the this-is-awesome dept.

New submitter Mathieu Stephan writes "Hello everyone! Some people told me that my latest project might interest you. I'm not sure you publish this kind of projects, but here it goes. Basically, it is a small platform that recognizes whistles in order to switch on/off appliances. It will be obviously more useful for lighting applications: just walk in a room, whistle, and everything comes on. The project is open hardware, and all the details are published on my website." The linked video is worth watching for the hidden-camera footage alone: it would be hard to not keep playing with this sensor.

24 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Put your lips together and blow... by Vombatus · · Score: 2

    What could possibly go wrong?

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    This sig is intentionally blank
    1. Re:Put your lips together and blow... by noh8rz10 · · Score: 2

      where is apk these days? this sounds like a $10,000 challenge...

  2. Multiple rooms by Dan+East · · Score: 4, Funny

    Interesting idea, but I think there would be serious scalability problems. Imagine if this was in each room in your home, and the doors to the rooms were open. Whistling in one room would almost certainly trigger the lights in the adjacent rooms as well. You would run into similar issues trying to control multiple lights in the same room independently, unless you started getting into more complex whistle patterns then those shown in the video. In that case you would start to sound like a songbird, or maybe R2D2.

    And finally two side notes...
    Not for use in emergency situations while eating saltine crackers.
    This method of controlling the lights would be extremely popular in the von Trapp house.

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:Multiple rooms by houghi · · Score: 5, Funny

      You would run into similar issues trying to control multiple lights in the same room independently,

      That can easily be solved. All you need is a switch to decide what light you want to trigger. You could place that switch near the door, so you can do it the moment you come in.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    2. Re:Multiple rooms by gnasher719 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Interesting idea, but I think there would be serious scalability problems. Imagine if this was in each room in your home, and the doors to the rooms were open. Whistling in one room would almost certainly trigger the lights in the adjacent rooms as well.

      Typical slashdot combination of the Nirvana fallacy (a solution that isn't 100% perfect is not acceptable), and a totally defeatist attitutude to technical problems.

    3. Re:Multiple rooms by mathieu.stephan · · Score: 2

      Hi! Actually if you put one whistled in one "inside" room corner this won't happen :) The microphone is omnidirectional, but not that much :)

    4. Re:Multiple rooms by Custard+Horse · · Score: 4, Funny

      All you need is a switch to decide what light you want to trigger. You could place that switch near the door, so you can do it the moment you come in.

      A ridiculous idea - it'll never catch on!

    5. Re:Multiple rooms by gstoddart · · Score: 2

      Typical slashdot combination of the Nirvana fallacy (a solution that isn't 100% perfect is not acceptable), and a totally defeatist attitutude to technical problems.

      It's not a defeatist attitude towards technical problems. It's a jaded belief that, sometimes, just throwing technology at a problem doesn't get you a better solution, just more technology.

      Like Microsoft's "house of the future" or whatever it's called -- sometimes it seems like technology for the sake of having more technology, not because it's anything anybody needs.

      I think this sounds kind of cool, but for the most part, it's pretty gimmicky and overkill in a Rube Goldberg kinda way. I applaud the work done for this, but I still shake my head and wonder who else wants it?

      I wouldn't be interested in whistling on my lights, but I've certainly known a couple of quadriplegics who would have thought this was pretty awesome though.

      Technology is cool, but it doesn't need to be fetishized as something we need to deploy in all cases -- like the idea of an internet connected fridge. Sure, we could do it, but do we really need an internet connected fridge?

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  3. Prior art from the 1950s... by crankyspice · · Score: 2

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/16/AR2007021602102.html

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    geek. lawyer.
  4. Just... by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    Just whistle while you work!

    WShreee.... Click!

    *Dammit*

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  5. I remember seeing a whistle device... by ls671 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I remember seeing a whistle device that you attach to your key ring. When you lose your keys, you whistle and your key ring beeps.

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tobar-Keyfinder-Keyring-Whistle-Activated/dp/B000246JIQ

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    Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    1. Re:I remember seeing a whistle device... by Inda · · Score: 2

      I bought a friend one because he's always losing his keys; losing them at my house *facepalm*

      It goes off when he's got the radio on, when a door creaks, when dogs bark, when his phone goes off... Well worth the couple of quid I spent on it. muhahaha

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      This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
  6. Re:fucken retards by Concerned+Onlooker · · Score: 4, Funny

    See, that's why the bible is so hard to believe. There's just no way all those things happened one minute apart.

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    http://www.rootstrikers.org/
  7. Kids These Days... by lobiusmoop · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They've got so much cheap compact compute horsepower to play with, it's almost obscene. 2048-wide FFT? In my day you would be overjoyed with a simple time-domain autocorrelation pitch detector.

    (Lawn, etc...)

    --
    "I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
    1. Re:Kids These Days... by jmv · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, an FFT is often cheaper than autocorrelation because it's N*log(N) whereas auto-correlation is N^2. In any case, it's insanely cheap on today's machines.

      --
      Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
  8. Re:as popular as the clapper! by Nutria · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Back in the 70s (when The Clapper first came out), we had a similar contraption that was basically a plastic whistle stuck to a hollow rubber ball. Squeeze the ball, the whistle whistles and the lamp turns on.

    As a teenager I enjoyed it, but I'm sure the adults thought it got old really quickly.

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
  9. Re:Voice-activated doors by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 2

    We got Star Trek's communicators without their Eugenics Wars of the 1990s.

    I'd say the real future is working out pretty well so far. I'm happy.

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    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  10. You insensitive clod! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I can't whistle!

  11. Re:fucken retards by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2

    Maybe someone should write the "Fucking Bible":

    "In the beginning god created the fucking heaven and the damn earth. And the earth was bloody formless and goddamn empty ..."

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  12. Re:Turning on lights? by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2

    In the past, there have been much more interesting things you could do by whistling ...

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    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  13. Re:FFT's ? kids these days by ikaruga · · Score: 2

    FFTs will allow the analysis of all frequencies up to half the sampling frequency using a single algorithm per execution. A processing method using IIR filters can only be used for a single band/filter. If whistles were the sole application I would agree with you(heck, I'm just a 27 old recently graduated from my PhD course and I think I could do that using only analog components). But the developer himself talks about other applications that could use other sounds. Instead of implementing and executing different IIRs for every single application, using a single FFT is far more productive. Plus, we're in the second decade of the 21st century. Unless there is explicit need to do so or you're a passionate about optimization, our hardware can handle "bloat".

  14. Re:as popular as the clapper! by lxs · · Score: 2

    I'm pretty sure he's talking about the RMS value. Or an approximation thereof if he uses a cheap multimeter.

  15. Re:fucken retards by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

    If there's swearing in the bible, it might be worth a read.

    Go forth and multiply.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  16. Re:fucken retards by Farmer+Pete · · Score: 2

    Can we call it the Tourette Bible?