Best way to detect if someone gets out of bed?

[JDRoberts]

In the discussion on the smart chair, you’ll see several posts on making your own pressure sensor which might also be of interest.

Smart Chair

I decided to experiment with the smart multi’s today. I had two extras after my move. I had the crazy idea that I could strap them to the chairs in my home office and use them as presence detectors. It works. But in looking at the data, I think I could do more. Just wanted to put this out to the collective and get some opinions. My first experiment was trying to detect taps on the arm rest. This seemed to work OK, but will require a new SmartApp. Second experiment was trying to detect if I am leaning back too much or not maintaining the correct posture. Any other ideas?

You probably already know this part, but for other people reading along, with any of these devices unless they are purposebuilt for going under the mattress you want to put only the dry contact pad under the mattress itself. Then cable it out to the radio/battery so that that piece is in a normal open air location, probably fixed to the side of the bed frame. That way you don’t have to worry about overheating.