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Name

Visitor Notifier

Summary
Get notified when people visit your store

Description

Would you like to spend your time having fun in-world rather then tending an empty shop? Would you like to know who came by while you were off-line? This is the perfect door chime system for you. This model with its built-in sensor can be placed by the entrance of your location such as a store, business, club, warehouse, back room, or any other location. As residents enter and exit a monitored door and pass through the invisible beam, you are notified of their presence with a clearly audible melodic door chime signal to prevent any surprises. When residents that haven't been seen in the past 20 minutes walk through the monitored area, you are sent an announcement with the name of the person and a slurl to the location for quicker access to greet the consumer.

Features

• Compact and reliable early alert system
• Dialog menu to setup options on owner-touch
• No wiring. Complete kit. Installs in seconds.
• Annunciator has ability to play a chime when someone walks through the beam (or remain silent)
• Turn notifications on/off
• Unaffected by sunlight.
• Acts as a sentinel for unattended areas and private offices.
• Opt-out of notifications when you are not logged in.
• Notifications include name and slurl to detected location for quick arrival.
• Can be used indoors, outdoors, and even under water.
• Turn beam on/off to see where interrupted sensor will detect people for easier placement.
• Easily concealed and mounted
• Sensor-covered area works with collision detection to minimize resources.
• Sensing distance up to 10 meters (32 feet) away
• Dialog menu times out after 3 minutes to release resources.
• Easy to install additional chime tones
• Discourages shoplifting.
• Random hidden channels used with each display of dialog menu to keep interaction secure.
• Allows personnel to work in other areas
• Low energy consumption design. Built-in sensor is collision based and does not use resource intensive methods
• Super easy to use

Dialog

When the owner touches the visitor notifier, they are presented with the current settings and buttons to toggle them on and off.

• Sound on/off turns the audible door chime on and off.
• Beam on/off turns the beam on and off
• Notify on/off determines if the owner will receive a message when someone is detected.
• LogOut on/off will determine if the owner will receive a message when they are not logged in.

Prims

10

Created

August 31, 2006

Permissions

Modify (Object only)
Copy

Versions

1.0
Initial public offering
1.1
Changed how owner is notified
1.2
Changed look
Added Menu
Changed notifications to include slurls

Background History

This item began as a way to detect people coming to my shop without using a sensor repeatedly. It was originally a floor-mat that was completely hidden. The complaint most often heard from customers was that it wouldn't detect anyone. The problem was because it was so thin, that it didn't register avatars walking on top of it. Raising the hidden object a few inches off the ground was a quick solution.

Another problem with an earlier version was the messaging. I had used a method to specifically send a message to the owner, thinking that the owner would be able to receive the message regardless of location and online status. The problem is that the method only sent a message to the owner of the object if the owner was in the same simulator as the object, and the owner was online at the time. The fix was to change the scripts to send an instant message to the owner instead.

Having an object completely invisible is hard to manage and find. I was also not happy about the image that I displayed for my product presentation since I had nothing to show. I created what appeared to be a door sensor that you may place on a wall at the entrance to your location. When the product first rezzes in-world, the beam that people pass through can be seen. This is for easier placement and better judgement on how to best detect avatars walking through it. Touching the notifier will let you turn the beam on and off through a dialog menu.

I've had many reports that owners didn't think that the product was working because it would avoid telling the owner that they were walking through the sensor, or that a friend had already walked through it. To get around this problem, I setup the sensor to play an audible sound any time someone walked through the beam, regardless if they were the owner, or had recently walked through it. Previously, I only notified the owner if the person walking through the beam had not done so within the past 20 minutes. The audible sound could become an unwanted feature, so I allow the owner to turn it off through a dialog menu.

After some consideration, I determined that some people don't want to be messaged at all, but may want to only hear the sound. After all, they may be tending the store, but may have different windows open other than having the Second Life viewer in the foreground. I added a feature to allow the owner to turn notifications off entirely. I also tweaked it so that as the owner, you can determine if you want messages while you are off-line. Sure, it may be nice to see all those emails of people visiting your store, but it could get a little spammy if you have a lot of people visiting while you are off-line.

One final touch that I did was to change the actual message so that instead of including the name of the person and a location, it now includes their name and a slurl. This helps me to get to the store very quickly when someone visits. Click and go!

Keywords

alarm, announce, announcement, annunciator, audible, beam, chime, club, collisions, copy, customers, dedric mauriac, ding dong, door, door bell, door chime annunciator, driveway alarms, entering, entrance, entry, front door, gadget, gate alarm, home automation, home security, infra red beam, leaving, modify, monitoring, motion detector, motion sensors, outdoor motion sensors, product, products, ring, scripted, security products, security systems, sentry, shop, sounds, store, visitor, visitor announcment system, visitor chime