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Idea

Neighborhood emergency intercom system

Image credit: Nucleus intercom

Darko Savic

Darko Savic Aug 25, 2021

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Every home in the neighborhood gets a small intercom installed. At the click of a button, anyone can broadcast their emergency message to everyone in the neighborhood.

The message gets put on repeat and is used as an alarm sound. There are 2 ways to stop the alarm:
the original issuer cancels it
everyone acknowledges it on their devices (click of a button)
While the alarm is sounding every device shows the name/location of the home that needs assistance.

Why?

This is a way for the community to come together and offer each other protection. Knowing that you are safe among your neighbors and they have your back.

Redundancy

Communication redundancy can be assured in several ways:
communication over power grid 
wireless mesh network 
Internet
The intercom device would have its own backup battery in case the power goes out. Also in case of network loss the device would be able to reconnect to the collective via any other available backup protocols.

Neighbrohood news and messaging

Neighbors could also use the device to leave each other non-urgent messages (video, audio or text). 

There could also be neighborhood news section where anyone can add interesting stuff that goes on in the neighborhood.

Spam/abuse

You can configure your device to ignore messages from specific neighbors

You can even opt to ignore their alarms. This would be useful in case they have a child that keeps on playing with the emergency intercom.

Best practices

Neighbors can agree on best practices, what to do in various scenarios. They can do periodic exercises - fire drill, burglary drill, heart attack, etc. 

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-line_communication

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network

personal security community

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Creative contributions

An additional activation control is needed

Shubhankar Kulkarni

Shubhankar Kulkarni Aug 26, 2021

If a house that is being burgled is empty, who would then click the button and sound the alarm?

Providing video footage of the house to the neighbors/ community so that someone might see the burglary and sound the alarm might be a violation of privacy.

Therefore, an automatic break-in alarm should be connected to the neighborhood emergency intercom. When the residents enter the house, they type in the password to switch off the alarm. In the case of a burglary, the automatic alarm turns on and it alarms the neighbors.

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Roll Call

Spook Louw

Spook Louw Sep 06, 2021

Perhaps such a system could also be fitted with a roll call function.

It would simply be a button that needs to be pressed once a day. If the button has not been pressed by a certain time during the day, someone from the neighbourhood would phone your house to check that you are okay, if there is no answer, someone would go to your home to check on you. 

Another button could be created to indicate that you are away, so people don't have to be alarmed when you don't check in for roll call.

This would be good in any community, but I can imagine neighbourhoods with elderly residents would benefit from this the most.

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Darko Savic

Darko Savic3 years ago

You need a password to enable the "I'm away" function. 

The function has a dummy password, which you enter if you are forced at a gunpoint or something. There is visually no difference between a real password and a dummy password except the dummy covertly notifies everyone that you are being held hostage.

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