Praveen Kumar A

THINK CONTROL - A Brain Control Interface (BCI) based Home automation

For every project, it is important to know what, why and how?

WHAT ->
- A device that gives humans the ability to control electronic devices around them by thinking.(Yeah!!!! ‘THINKING’)
- A 3D-printed nested cap-like structure is worn on the head and contains the components that make the 'Think Control' work.

WHY ->
- As technology changes day by day, and human life adapts to that technology quickly as compared to any other era before, innovators around the world want to contribute to that adaptation. As technology enthusiasts ourselves, we also want to contribute to that change and also want that contribution to help the people who aren't able to access the simplest of things by themselves.
- Considering that people in mind, we want the main application of the proposed project to be used by them.
- For example; Consider people who are [physically challenged, with parkinson's disease, motor disabilities, blind and other challenges]. Deep inside their heart, they think that they want to do things like others by themselves. So with that in mind, we decided to build an electronic device which can be put on the head and gives the person the ability to control the electronic things around them by thinking. (A person with Parkinson's is able to switch ON/OFF light, fan, TV and is able to be alone at home when other people in the home are busy.)

How ->
- Brain Control Interface (BCI) which measures the electrical pulses generated from the head. Electrodes which are placed in the scalp (will be simplified in the future) of the Head to get the required EEG signal from specific parts of the brain.
- The result is a time series data. That data will be wrangled, cleaned, pre-processed and filtered with suitable transformations.
- Final data stream is sent to a ML Algorithm , to find the patterns and correlation in the stream, which finally triggers the state in the home assistant server hosted in raspberry pi via MQTT protocol.

Points when asked to ourselves that motivated us to build this device with manual control:
Despite many automation devices, like automatic fan and light switches when in a room or outside, some functions may still require manual control.

Why do some still require manual input?
While home automation can streamline many tasks and make daily life more convenient, there will always be situations where manual control is preferred or necessary due to considerations like;
- When using TV, we want to control the channel/Volume to watch.
- Light hue control based on the mood of the person.


What negatives will we get from other manual control devices?
No Privacy (voice assistants that disclose sensitive information), Security Concerns (Cameras and other sensors may get into people's privacy), no personalization, can't do occasional tasks, no adaptability and no user preferences. Users will not have the flexibility to choose the level of automation that best suits their needs and comfort levels.


Personal Experience:
I have home assistant for past 3 years, since then i am using my mobile phone to toggle complex automations, its seems so convenient , time and energy saving , and about a year after, it occurred to me that why don't we give physically challenged people this control experience in some way so that they do not feel physically challenged any longer?
And also, as I am lazy, basically it felt more friction for me to take out my mobile and turn off the appliance ?, so now i am planning to switching to more intuitive and user-friendly solution (Think Control), Just think of the appliance or automation to trigger, and that's it Viola! ?. So, this device is basically for lazy people like me too ? (Pun Intended).