Cool idea, but Microsoft...

[trago]

Hi everybody,

 

I was thinking whole week about this idea. Imagine, you come home tired from working all day and you don't even want to press the On/Off button on your computer, you just want to sit down and everything should be done by itself.

 

So my idea is pretty simple. All you need is a camera, working PC with Windows 10, motion sensor/pressure sensor and embedded system (Arduino, Raspberry Pi etc.). You will mount sensor on your chair or wall (or something else) depending which sensor you have, embedded system will send signal via wire to your ON PIN on your motherboard or just via USB as keyboard stroke (In this case, you will need to figure it out settings in Windows to wake up computer or in bios to turn on (Not sure about that)).

If you have that, next step will be camera and Windows' "new" feature Windows Hello. I will admit, it is where I forfeited. I just wanted to use common webcam which you teorically could use for face recognition with some lights (for me, it will be 3 monitors which surrounds me). But no, Windows Hello will not allow some peasant webcam to work on their precious face recognition feature. I tried to change registry to allow Windows Hello, but with no change. No Face recognition with button "Set", just text "Windows Hello is not available on your device.". I am not skillful enough to go and change drivers properties of webcam, but I figured that if you somehow change them to show webcam like Biometric device and not USB Video Device, it might work.

 

So I want to ask, if somebody here is skillful enough to help me with this little project of mine, I will have czech beer with you and you will have my gratitude forever.

If somebody has any improvements or constructive critics, I am all ears.

 

Have a nice day,

Trago 

[BrinkGG]

4 minutes ago, trago said:

Hi everybody,

 

I was thinking whole week about this idea. Imagine, you come home tired from working all day and you don't even want to press the On/Off button on your computer, you just want to sit down and everything should be done by itself.

 

So my idea is pretty simple. All you need is a camera, working PC with Windows 10, motion sensor/pressure sensor and embedded system (Arduino, Raspberry Pi etc.). You will mount sensor on your chair or wall (or something else) depending which sensor you have, embedded system will send signal via wire to your ON PIN on your motherboard or just via USB as keyboard stroke (In this case, you will need to figure it out settings in Windows to wake up computer or in bios to turn on (Not sure about that)).

If you have that, next step will be camera and Windows' "new" feature Windows Hello. I will admit, it is where I forfeited. I just wanted to use common webcam which you teorically could use for face recognition with some lights (for me, it will be 3 monitors which surrounds me). But no, Windows Hello will not allow some peasant webcam to work on their precious face recognition feature. I tried to change registry to allow Windows Hello, but with no change. No Face recognition with button "Set", just text "Windows Hello is not available on your device.". I am not skillful enough to go and change drivers properties of webcam, but I figured that if you somehow change them to show webcam like Biometric device and not USB Video Device, it might work.

 

So I want to ask, if somebody here is skillful enough to help me with this little project of mine, I will have czech beer with you and you will have my gratitude forever.

If somebody has any improvements or constructive critics, I am all ears.

 

Have a nice day,

Trago 

You could do a IFTTT outlet controller with google home, Alexa, or Siri to activate it, and just leave wake on power restore enabled on your motherboard. You could set it up so it would be as simple as walking in range of a google home mini and saying "Hey Google, Turn on My PC." and it would switch the relay in the outlet controller. 

 

There's a lot of ways to do this. The only real problem solving you need to figure out is what your method of activation you want to use to power on the desktop. 

[trago]

58 minutes ago, Brink2Three said:

You could do a IFTTT outlet controller with google home, Alexa, or Siri to activate it, and just leave wake on power restore enabled on your motherboard. You could set it up so it would be as simple as walking in range of a google home mini and saying "Hey Google, Turn on My PC." and it would switch the relay in the outlet controller. 

 

There's a lot of ways to do this. The only real problem solving you need to figure out is what your method of activation you want to use to power on the desktop. 

Turning the PC on isn't a really problem here. As you said, you can do it many cooler ways, but I want it as cheap as it gets and still does its purpose (And make it upgradable of course).

 

My problem, right now, is Windows Hello feature.

[GoodBytes]

20 minutes ago, trago said:

Hi everybody,

 

I was thinking whole week about this idea. Imagine, you come home tired from working all day and you don't even want to press the On/Off button on your computer, you just want to sit down and everything should be done by itself.

 

So my idea is pretty simple. All you need is a camera, working PC with Windows 10, motion sensor/pressure sensor and embedded system (Arduino, Raspberry Pi etc.). You will mount sensor on your chair or wall (or something else) depending which sensor you have, embedded system will send signal via wire to your ON PIN on your motherboard or just via USB as keyboard stroke (In this case, you will need to figure it out settings in Windows to wake up computer or in bios to turn on (Not sure about that)).

If you have that, next step will be camera and Windows' "new" feature Windows Hello. I will admit, it is where I forfeited. I just wanted to use common webcam which you teorically could use for face recognition with some lights (for me, it will be 3 monitors which surrounds me). But no, Windows Hello will not allow some peasant webcam to work on their precious face recognition feature. I tried to change registry to allow Windows Hello, but with no change. No Face recognition with button "Set", just text "Windows Hello is not available on your device.". I am not skillful enough to go and change drivers properties of webcam, but I figured that if you somehow change them to show webcam like Biometric device and not USB Video Device, it might work.

 

So I want to ask, if somebody here is skillful enough to help me with this little project of mine, I will have czech beer with you and you will have my gratitude forever.

If somebody has any improvements or constructive critics, I am all ears.

 

Have a nice day,

Trago 

Everything you mentioned can be done. So I don't get your "...but Microsoft".. Nothing is blocking you form doing this.

You have had laptop with facial recognition to login before Windows Hello. They were all garbage, but that is just the laptop manufcature solution that they used, and of course they weren't willing to spend money on a good camera.

 

 

[trago]

1 minute ago, GoodBytes said:

Everything you mentioned can be done. So I don't get your "...but Microsoft".. Nothing is blocking you form doing this.

You have had laptop with facial recognition to login before Windows Hello. They were all garbage, but that is just the OEM solution that they used.

 

 

I know it can be done, but sadly it is not in my capabilty yet. As I said, I don't know how to change description of device (software change non-biometric webcam to biometric) and I can't really find any how-to information.

[GoodBytes]

14 minutes ago, trago said:

I know it can be done, but sadly it is not in my capabilty yet. As I said, I don't know how to change description of device (software change non-biometric webcam to biometric) and I can't really find any how-to information.

You do have sofwtare that you can buy or have free versions. A quick look online I found Rohos Face Logon, not sure how good it is, or if it bloatware. So try at your own risk.

 

[Arika]

35 minutes ago, trago said:

you don't even want to press the On/Off button

this is peak laziness....

 

Quote

But no, Windows Hello will not allow some peasant webcam to work on their precious face recognition feature

because "peasant webcams" don't emit IR

"The facial recognition side of Windows Hello works by bouncing infrared (IR) light off your face and picking it up with a camera "

"Windows Hello face authentication utilizes a camera specially configured for near infrared (IR) imaging"

 

so even if they did allow you to use your own webcam for it it would be inconstant as hell which completely negates the entire purpose of Windows Hello

 

[trago]

26 minutes ago, Arika S said:

this is peak laziness....

 

because "peasant webcams" don't emit IR

"The facial recognition side of Windows Hello works by bouncing infrared (IR) light off your face and picking it up with a camera "

"Windows Hello face authentication utilizes a camera specially configured for near infrared (IR) imaging"

 

so even if they did allow you to use your own webcam for it it would be inconstant as hell which completely negates the entire purpose of Windows Hello

 

26 minutes ago, Arika S said:

this is peak laziness....

 

 

It is, it's written in tags.

 

26 minutes ago, Arika S said:

because "peasant webcams" don't emit IR

"The facial recognition side of Windows Hello works by bouncing infrared (IR) light off your face and picking it up with a camera "

"Windows Hello face authentication utilizes a camera specially configured for near infrared (IR) imaging"

I know they don't emit IR and I know what they wrote on their page. Apart from that, IR webcams are used, because they don't rely upon visible light. If you use normal webcam, there will be shadows which can make face recognition not work properly. Yes, I am aware of that, but I don't want to deconstruct my webcam, take off IR filter, buy IR Diode and construct it back. That would not solve the problem, because webcam would still be as Webcam in Device Manager, not as Biometric Device.

[trago]

24 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

You do have sofwtare that you can buy or have free versions. A quick look online I found Rohos Face Logon, not sure how good it is, or if it bloatware. So try at your own risk.

 

Thank you for that, I will try it maybe, if nothing else works.

[Remy D. Marquis]

Windows hello works only when windows has already booted up, you can't use it to boot up the PC. I have some other neat solutions for you though.

 

1- you can hook up a motion sensor to the power pins so when you sit it turns on.

2- you can also program a motion sensor as an input and hook it to the USB instead and triggering it will wake the PC from sleep.

3- you can use BIOS settings to turn on automatically using a timer.

4- you can change windows settings to wake up from sleep on a timer.

 

These are all easy solutions and cost effective. I usually set up the wake up timer like 1 minute before my alarm "which is on my PC and hooked to a 7.1 sound system" so it will go off and wake me up lol

[Shreyas1]

If you can get an old Xbox 360 Kinect, apparently you can use that for windows hello

[trago]

13 hours ago, Remy D. Marquis said:

Windows hello works only when windows has already booted up, you can't use it to boot up the PC. I have some other neat solutions for you though.

 

1- you can hook up a motion sensor to the power pins so when you sit it turns on.

2- you can also program a motion sensor as an input and hook it to the USB instead and triggering it will wake the PC from sleep.

3- you can use BIOS settings to turn on automatically using a timer.

4- you can change windows settings to wake up from sleep on a timer.

 

These are all easy solutions and cost effective. I usually set up the wake up timer like 1 minute before my alarm "which is on my PC and hooked to a 7.1 sound system" so it will go off and wake me up lol

I know that. My plan was that you go by the sensor, arduino will send signal to your pins or as a keystroke via USB to turn on/wake up PC and then after booting up, Windows Hello will wait for you with face recognition.

 

I didn't think about the BIOS timer, thank you for that. I think I can make use of that  And using alarm as you do isn't bad idea either, just to get 7.1 sound system  

[trago]

On 4/6/2019 at 12:34 AM, Shreyas1 said:

If you can get an old Xbox 360 Kinect, apparently you can use that for windows hello

I will try to get one, thank you for the tip 

[GoodBytes]

14 hours ago, Shreyas1 said:

If you can get an old Xbox 360 Kinect, apparently you can use that for windows hello

No, you need the Kinect of the XBox One, and you need the PC adapter for it.