Chad Barraford is living the dream. Inspired by Edwin Jarvis, the superhero's man-servant turned computer in the film adaptation of Iron Man, the 27 year old Barraford pieced together a digital life assistant, dubbed JARVIS, to keep his household (and life) in order. JARVIS is built on a 4-year-old Mac mini linked to everything from his home lighting/security and RFID entry system (self-built on
Arduino) to his George Foreman grill plugged into his X10 home automation network. JARVIS is always aware of Chad's location (thanks to Google Latitude) and can be controlled in the house via remote control or a wireless mic and the Mac's built-in speech recognition software; or via Twitter and text messages when away. Chad's friends each have their own keychain RFID tags. So does his dog. When his friends are in the house, JARVIS becomes less chatty and doesn't speak any personal information related to his finances or Facebook updates, for example. When the dog comes home JARVIS turns on the lights in the mutt's room. The Chad started the project less than a year ago and cost the man less than $700 in gear. Yes, he hopes to commercialize it. Until then we've got a few choice video selections after the break.
posted April 7th 2010 3:42AM
Ah the future... I can't wait to stand next to my appliances and send a text message to turn them on.
Walt Disney didn't predict that...
It's fun being bitter about everything
@Franks Beef
Or joking about everything...
@Michael Scrip in the near future, he will be able to use the camera on the phone to take a photo of the barcode OR device and then have Jebus use the info... Your right the IM is a poor substitute, but a clear way of showing what is done with the information.
@Michael Scrip
Unbelievable that he has to still put his own condiments on his food. And get his own plate?
Pee-Wee Herman's automation system FTW.
Future Bill Gates! good luck Men! ;)
@geimsss
...yes, good luck "MEN."
That dude needs a girlfriend.
@sweet greggo
He's got one right there. Look, the redhead!
@sweet greggo
Come on. You know there are tons of girls are lined up outside his parents house, just dying to here that badass TTS voice informing them what feast he has prepared.
@sweet greggo WOW. Needing to make fun of people because you know you'll never accomplish anything nearly as productive or awesome in your entire life much?
@chaddledee
Whoa there, skippy. Let a little internet joking get to you much?
@sweet greggo Hes screwed when the power goes out. poor kid will starve
@SuperHaole
i believe you misspelled your name. the A and H are backwards.
Far from Iron Man's A.I. but its a good start.
@neoanime
That's the point, it's a new project which is still in development. For what it is at this point it's very cool and interests me quite a bit. I'm quite curious to see what other applications he has in mind for this system. One thing I know I would like to see is a smart sensor for lighting in the bathroom. Self-activating lights int he bathroom would be ideal for reduction of bacterial/germ transmission. Less things to touch after = less spread. The 2nd part of this would be to integrate a motion sensor and timing system which allows the lighting to be automatically activated, but to come on at a dimmer level during late night visits. I know I for one, hate stepping into the bathroom at 3 AM and being blinded by the solar flare which are my vanity lights.
@cjwild
It needs video and voice recognition. Considering the target market, it should have a BAC sensing feature as well, and come with a bunch of sweet cars and a mansion on a cliff... And an awesome suit of armor...
God damn it. I wish I was Iron Man. Time to make with the paper-craft and freak out my coworkers... Pew! Pew!
@cjwild it's called motion detectors. Had them in the bathrooms in a few of my barracks rooms. Very cheap and easy.
@ytilanigiroon This is exactly what I want at my house, I was hoping he would make the code public, I don't know that he can commercialize something with so many difference pieces to be purchased?
I just need a computer like in ST: The Next Generation, that can understand questions and talk back to me with alerts and reminders in any room of the house I'm in. I wish it was as easy as it sounds. I don't care for it to do everything for me, I think all this other stuff is overkill. it doesn't need to know when I'm smiling or crying!
@neoanime He should be working on Linuxmce with this, it's a more complete system
Basically it's a glorified timer, he could have done the same (cooking thing) with just a standard timer and saved on the IM and stuff.
What would make this interesting would be if he was able to have good voice recognition built into Jarvis, and have that control things.
Pretty awesome Jarvis does seem really useful. I would love to see how Jarvis grows over time.
@Eroded Fallacy
I think I know. There's this Austrian guy running around causing destruction and mayhem.
@Slycer Still can't decode it:
John: Assassinate. Report Via Internet - Skynet
or
Skynet - Initiate Very Rapid Annihilation of John
Well done and I hope he takes it further.
From the 2nd video I think he takes a nice approach in the control of the appliance, covering several states of the meal process. These activities can be quite complex alone if you'd start messing around a lot with the grill and try to fool it into unpredictable situations.
Give this guy a quantum computer, pls.
I'm both astounded and disturbed
Whoa... wait... Is this guy an Apple collector? I swear in one video he has a framed iPhone. Who does that?
@freecajunlove people that create "systems" to "automate" their homes with old computer hardware.
Ok next step:
Install electronic smoke detectors in every room of your house.
When it detects smoke, stop cooking! Turn all electronic devices off, ring some alarms and text the owner. Also have some temperature sensors, if things get really hot after smoke detection, then robocall those nice friendly firefighters :)
@Parlane unless it's Jarvis itself that went on fire!
@iMrEuphony
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
So if the fire could harm the human, then JARVIS should sadly destroy itself to stop harm coming to the human.
Is there an app for this?
I guess I'd prefer to let my friend have me RFID equipped than the gov or a corp, but..." come on, I thought we were dogs."
I'll be impressed when JARVIS both loads the hot dogs and cleans the grill.
@jimlovell777
That's what she said!!!
That's some really healthy food!
He took a year to do this? I hope he didn't spend too much time. I bet he used Python or Perl for it too.
@Matt da Brat Applescript, according to the TUAW article.
wait - the chad can slap this admittedly bad-ass system together, yet cooks his meals on a george foreman?
I'm sorry Chad, I can't let you do that.
Chad, if JARVIS over rides my command, can I do: "sudo make me a sandwich" or something like that?
His friends can just "forget" to bring their chip and then listen to JARVIS talk about how his girlfriend left him and he's in debt.
@FallenArms3
That's what I was thinking. His friends forget their RFID, and here "your torrent download SpankySpankySItOnMy.. is now complete. You need more Kleenex."
Also, while doing this, be aware of your future wife accepting factor :)
I cant wait for the future
pretty friggen kool
5:17 and onwards on the second video does not look or sound right.
This is just X10 linked to a messaging account, and voice software.
Why is this such a big deal? There have been "For Dummies" books on this for years already.
Notice how he did this all with a MAC MINI?
Try doing this with a windows PC. Poor fido wouldn't get the light turned on because he would be faced with the blue screen of death and a crashed computer from viruses!
Maybe he can have jarvis teach him how to hang pictures up properly....am I the only one who couldn't stop staring at the uneven pics on his wall???
This guy is my new hero. Sorry Josh, you're now number 2 on the list :)