Over the last couple of years, we've seen various attempts to make home automation simpler and more accessible with prime examples being Google Home and Apple's HomeKit solution. Even Mark Zuckerberg had a go at building his own personal AI assistant for his family home as his challenge for 2016.
While speech recognition and app integration have been the primary means with which to interact with home automation systems, a fan has taken a slightly different approach with his smart home setup, using none other than the iconic wind instrument from Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
The ocarina played an important role in the renowned Nintendo 64 game, allowing Link to teleport to various locations, summon his horse, Epona, and even turning day into night or vice versa, through the use of specific short melodies. In his implementation, maker and YouTuber, Allen Pan, leveraged these melodies in conjunction with an internet-connected Raspberry Pi and microphone to automate a number of functions in his home, including:
- Zelda's Lullaby: Lock/unlock the front door
- Sun's Song: Turn on the lights
- Minuet of Forest: Water the plants
- Epona's Song: Unlock the car
- Song of Healing: Reset all modules to their default state
While the setup is pretty cool, a system based purely on note recognition would have some fairly obvious security implications, with potential thieves only needing to arm themselves with a suitable instrument or at least a recording of each melody to gain access and control. While the use of two-factor authentication would help mitigate the risk, it would somewhat detract from the novelty of Pan's Zelda-inspired creation.
Source: Sufficiently Advanced (YouTube) via Mashable
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