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Idea

A system that monitors a room and outputs a heatmap of stuff you never use

Image credit: Yixin Zhu

Darko Savic

Darko Savic Nov 17, 2021

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Camera/software-based system that monitors a room, gathers statistics, and points out stuff you never use. Identify clutter and poor choice of furniture that is never used.
Why?
A way to Identify clutter and point out stuff you might not need anymore.
Point out areas that are not useful and thus might be suitable for a redesign.
More efficient use of space.
How it works
A 90-degree, high-quality camera is placed in a corner so that it sees everything in the room. It starts recording whenever people are active in the room and stops when there is no movement. Multiple cameras could be placed if necessary.
The software that analyzes the footage:
identifies movable objects
saves an inventory of everything that was touched/moved
keeps track of how many times something has been touched/moved
where people hang out and where they pass through
Based on this the software outputs a heatmap of most and least used parts of the room and most and least used objects.
Identify different people via facial recognition and output object/room usage stats for each individual.
This lets you know what you don't need anymore. You identify stuff that clutters the room and might belong in the basement/attic storage instead. You identify parts of the room that are never used. Maybe they are less accessible due to poor choice of furniture.

business ideas interior design

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Creative contributions

A similar system could also be used to track sunlight and temperature

Spook Louw

Spook Louw Nov 18, 2021

Apart from tracking your movement and identifying items that are or aren't used often, such a system could also perhaps track the sunlight and temperature in a house or room. This information could be useful to help determine where you want to place certain pieces of furniture and plants. 
Obviously, this information is pretty simple to obtain through observation, so I wouldn't think it's necessary to build something solely for that purpose, but it could be a nice secondary function.  

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What if IR cameras were used instead

Povilas S

Povilas S Nov 18, 2021

I initially thought that the idea suggests using an infrared monitoring system to determine the "density" of times people spend in specific places more easily. I'm not sure if it would be better than using ordinary cameras, but it might be more simple because the camera wouldn't have to produce a quality image for the software to recognize and track a person's movements, a person would simply be recognized as an IR emitting spot of a certain size and shape. 
The layout of the room would be mapped and entered into the system initially, the system would interpret the room as a matrix of coordinates, each item would have its dimensions mapped on coordinate axes. That way the room with fixed furniture wouldn't have to be constantly filmed. This would save the unnecessary data input and therefore might simplify the whole system.

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Darko Savic

Darko Savic3 years ago

The system also has to map different objects. The objects (remote controller, etc) could be moved around by people. The more an object is used/useful the more frequently it's moved.

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Povilas S

Povilas S3 years ago

Darko Savic Yes, if the system would also care for small objects then it's different. The IR system could only work with furniture and the general fixed layout of the room/house.

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