# Housing estate: monitoring and a parking system

A concept for extending the monitoring and a design for a parking system for a housing community in Warsaw. One was implemented, the other stayed on paper.

## At a glance

- Type: A project developed at Kol.ski
- For whom: A housing community in Warsaw, described anonymously
- Scope: Monitoring concept, parking system design
- Status: Monitoring implemented in a simplified form, parking at the design stage

## Challenge

The existing monitoring did not cover the places residents asked about: staircases, lifts, the bin store and the patio. In the garage, narrow passages and an exit without visibility, so drivers warned each other with mirrors and the horn.

> No subscription, and no recordings handed to an outside party.

The community wanted solutions it could maintain on its own.

## Solution

Two designs on open components, with the data held by the community and expansion staircase by staircase.

### Monitoring

A camera placement plan point by point, with a rationale for each location and field of view. A Wi-Fi mesh network where a cable was not worth it, cameras on Raspberry Pi, door-open sensors on technical doors.

### Parking

A system from scratch on Raspberry Pi: plate readers at the entrance and the exit, a central vehicle database, LEDs guiding to an assigned space, collision warning in narrow passages.

## Result

The contractor implemented the placement from the concept, but with simpler means. For residents the result is the one that mattered: footage from the places the concept pointed to, stored by the community.

| Element | Concept | Implementation | Outcome |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Camera placement | Point by point, with fields of view | Built to the concept | + Implemented |
| Cameras | Raspberry Pi with our own software | Off-the-shelf Reolink cameras | ~ Simplified |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi mesh network | Ordinary Wi-Fi routers, mostly cabled | ~ Simplified |
| Door sensors | Door-open sensors on technical doors | None | - Not implemented |
| Parking system | Plates, database, LED guidance, warning | None: monitoring came first | - Design only |

## Lessons

- Placement outlives hardware. A contractor will always simplify the technology, so a design has to stand on its layout and fields of view, not on the brand of the devices.
- Off-the-shelf hardware wins on service. Custom software needs someone to maintain it, and a community has no IT department.
- An unbuilt design remains too. Plate recognition, guidance to a space and collision warning return in our work on [devices](https://kol.ski/en/rd-devices).
- Standards are born from practice. [OOPIS](https://kol.ski/en/projects/oopis) came from the same community: the need for durable labelling of building elements.

## A similar problem?

We design monitoring, networks and systems for buildings so that they can be maintained without us. Tell us what you want to solve.

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