Thingy:AQ BUSHFIRE ALERT PANEL is a part of the Thingy:AQ Air Quality Monitoring and Bushfire Early Warning System
The Thingy:AQ Bushfire Alert Panel has been developed specifically for Australia. The Panel provides visual and audible alert indication of Bushfire Alerts. A panel is logically associated with a Sensor Node but is typically not co-located with a Sensor Node. The panel receives Smoke Alerts via the backend application, typically located in the public cloud, that processes the associated Sensor Node data. Based on the post processing of the data a Smoke Alert event may be deemed to exist and this is flagged to the Panel. In the event a Smoke Alert is present, the panel will emit an audible warning from the panel directly and via an optional external siren. The panel will also display status on an OLED display and via LEDs on the Panel. The audible alarm can be suppressed via the acknowledge button on the panel which will suppress the alarm for 15 minutes. If the alarm persists the alarm will resound. Audible alarms can be disabled via the panel’s ‘Disable Alarm’ button. The visual alarms cannot be disabled and will clear only when the Alarm Condition is no longer present.
The backend also processes real-time bushfire specific updates Department of Fire and Emergency Services and converts the status messages from Human Readable Text to a Machine-to-Machine format (MQTT) that can be consumed readily by the panels.
A panel displays DFES alerts utilizing seven RGB LEDs that change colour based on the specific alert status. Four of these LEDs are used to display the Bushfire Warning Level. Four are required as all four conditions for the same region can occur at the same time. The LEDs including:
- Total Fire Ban Status (off = No BAN, RED = Total Fire Ban in progress)
- Fire Danger Rating (the LED colour matches the Fire Danger Rating)
- Bushfire Warning Level:
- All Clear (off = No message, green = message — check DFES site)
- Bushfire Advice (off = No message, green = message — check DFES site)
- Watch and Act (off = No message, red = message — check DFES site)
- Emergency (off = No message, red = message — check DFES site)
The Fire Danger Rating LED colour on the Alarm Panel corresponds to the same colour scheme as the graphic for the corresponding state. In this case the panel has been setup for Western Australia. The Panel does not show RED/BLACK for Catastrophic. It display RED and displays the message
FDR-CATASTROPHIC on its OLED Display
The backend application can be configured to aggregate the DFES Bushfire Warning Level alerts from multiple locations for a specific Bushfire Alert Panel. A resident in a bushfire prone area may want to do this as their property borders on two or more adjacent areas and they need to receive the Bushfire Warning Level status for them all. The Bushfire Warning Level alerts each indicate one or more alerts of that specific type exists in one or more of the selected locations. The panel does not show the actual textual based messages, the Panel indicates an active DFES Bushfire Warning Levels exists and that the user should check the DFES site for the actual messages.
There are two versions of the Bushfire Alert Panel. From an appearance perspective they both look the same. There is a WiFi version and a LoRaWAN version.
In general, the WiFi variant is useful in an urban area where the availability of a network connection and power is readily available. This might be an attractive option for someone that wants to receive alerts for one or more remote properties in a bushfire prone areas.
The LoRaWAN version is better suited to residents of bushfire prone areas. This is because this variant does not rely on the continuous presence of power or internet connectivity at the property neither of which can be guaranteed in a bushfire event.
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