Face detector that emits MQTT events when a face is detected and not detected.

I built this as an alternative to using PIR motion sensors to turn on the lights in my office. I found that when sitting at my computer (somewhat motionless), the PIR motion sensors stop detecting motion and turn off the lights while I am still in the room.

Instead of using motion sensors, this project is constantly monitoring a camera (attached to a raspberry pi) and looking to see if a face is present on the camera - if a face is present, the lights stay on.

My raspberry pi + camera are placed on my desk under my computer monitors. When I walk into the room and sit down at my computer my face is detected - and continue to be detected while I sit at the computer.

Note: the mqtt client id is customisable via environment variables. The default cvzone_tracker_01 is used in the examples below

A face has been detected

MQTT Topic: home/cvzone_tracker_01/face_detected
Payload: 1

A face is no longer detected (a face must be detected first)

MQTT Topic: home/cvzone_tracker_01/face_detected
Payload: 0

MQTT client has connected

MQTT Topic: home/cvzone_tracker_01/status
Payload: connected

MQTT client has disconnected (sent as MQTT last will message)

MQTT Topic: home/cvzone_tracker_01/status
Payload: disconnected

Required: Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit

Set the following options in raspi-config and reboot:

• GPU Memory -> 256
• Legacy Camera Stack -> Enabled

Install docker:

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
sudo sh get-docker.sh
sudo usermod -aG docker pi
sudo systemctl enable docker
sudo reboot

docker run \
  -d \
  --restart=unless-stopped \
  --device /dev/video0 \
  -e MQTT_ADDRESS="10.1.1.100" \
  -e MQTT_PORT="1883" \
  -e MQTT_USERNAME="username" \
  -e MQTT_PASSWORD="password" \
  -e MQTT_CLIENT_ID="cvzone_tracker_01" \
  -e MIN_FACE_SCORE="0.5" \
  -e ROTATE_IMAGE="0" \
  --name=face-detect-mqtt \ 
  selexin/face-detect-mqtt:latest

• MQTT_ADDRESS - IP Address of MQTT broker on local network
• MQTT_PORT - Port of MQTT broker on local network
• MQTT_USERNAME - Username for MQTT Authorization
• MQTT_PASSWORD - Password for MQTT Authorization
• MQTT_CLIENT_ID - Custom MQTT client ID to use
• MIN_FACE_SCORE - Number between 0.0 and 0.1. Ignore face detections with a confidence lower than this number.
• ROTATE_IMAGE - Set to "1" to if your camera is upside-down

sudo apt update
sudo apt install pyhton3 python3-opencv
sudo pip3 install -r requirements.txt

python3 src/main.py