Mi HomeGuard - how it all startedgmail-icon
Several years ago, my mum Irene, then aged 89 was told by her doctor she could “go” at anytime and she was stopped from driving. Mum had Leukemia and her blood cell count levels had dropped sharply prompting her doctor to take action. 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 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 system ran for 18 months before mum sadly passed away, but by using HomeGuard she stayed totally independent and my sister and I had the luxury of being able to check easily that she was ok. Mum was moved to our local Hospital for her last week where she got the best possible care. She died with all her family at her side, she was incredibly brave.


When I first started development on HomeGuard all sensors at that time were built from components and manually soldered by myself. One potential problem was how I would cope if I got any large orders. Another problem I had was battery life, which at that time was at best 6 months. Recently both problems were solved, I now use ready made sensors from China which have a battery life of over two years and have proved to be very reliable.


If interested please email: contact@mihg.co.uk