Mi HomeGuard - how it all started.
At the age of 88, my mum Irene was living alone with Leukemia. Her readings at first were stable, then one day her Doctor called and said her latest blood count tests had dropped off a cliff and she must stop driving. The Doctor added - the levels were that low she could "go" at anytime, I was devastated. Luckily I lived very close to mum and although I visited her regularly I still wondered if I could do more to monitor her well being.

Just by chance I’d been working on a power monitoring system using the Raspberry Pi and I thought this might be an ideal solution for checking that mum was all right. I developed sensors for PiR motion and door open/close activity and installed a basic system in mum’s house.

One of the most important events is early kitchen activity and a single PiR located in the Kitchen was used to show mum up and about making her breakfast. I could then see other activity as mum made her other meals and regular cups of tea. The door sensor was also useful in showing when she left the house to visit her many friends and then checking that she got back home ok. Using the internet, my sister living 300 miles away in Bristol and I could interrogate the system from home and when on holiday abroad and view mum as she went about her normal busy schedule. 

The Ver1 system ran for 18 months before mum sadly passed away, but by using Mi HomeGuard she stayed totally independent and my sister and I had the luxury of being able to check easily that she was ok. The Ver1 system was also installed and tested with two local neighbours where it ran successfully for six and eight years.

MiHG working with ELVES CIC