Person Sensor by Useful Sensors Inc

What is Person Sensor?

Useful Sensor Inc has launched a very low cost camera based person sensor which can easily detect presence of a person and can even recognize its face.

It gives all the information on I2C interface which is available on almost all MCUs so it really encapsulates the complexity and provides an easy to use sensor to implement an advanced detection.

Easy to use makes it so unique.

Anyone with basic MCU programming knowledge will be able to add a sensor to detect people, recognize face and build intelligent solutions.

Technical Specifications

• It is built on Himax AI microcontroller (HX6537-A) which used ML model for detection
• Qwiic connector for the I²C interface (upto 400Khz)
• There’s also a separate interrupt pin, TP1, which is used to indicate if any people have been detected.
• Operating Voltage – 3.3V, consumes 150mW ( 5mW for LED)
• Image Sensor has 110 degree FOV, it can scan at 7Hz with no facial recognition and scan at 5Hz rate with facial recognition.
• Module designed for privacy – so raw image data is not available.
• the board comes with pre-programmed MCU, users/developers won’t be able to flash the firmware or update the ML models as of now.

What all is possible using Person Sensor?

• Automate AHU by detecting how many people are available in the conference room.
• Automate Fan light AC control based on presence of people in the office space/home?
• Recognize a person when they enter a room and personalize ambient or voice message or music?
• Detect occupancy of office space and help admin utilize space more efficiently?

Possibilities are endless.

Videos showing Person Sensor in Action

Information for Developers

• Developer’s Guide
• Examples:
  • Auto-Lock your Laptop Screen with a Person Sensor
  • Person Sensor Screen Locker
  • Person Sensor with Pico C
  • Person Sensor with Arduino
  • Person Sensor with Raspberry Pi & Python
  • Person Sensor with Circuit Python

What is the cost of Person Sensor and from where to buy it?

Sparkfun Electronics has listed the product on their store, currently not in stock.

Cost of the sensor is <10$, wow!

It doesn’t have any other sensors on board neither connectivity like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth but that can be added to it easily with external board and probably a battery back up.

I am sure, I want to buy and evaluate it as soon as possible.

What about you?

Source: Useful Sensors Inc & Sparkfun Electronics

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I am currently working as an embedded systems design consultant and helping companies build successful and reliable embedded products.

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