I’m on the fence about whether it should be tied into the alarm. On the surface it sounds like a good idea. But a fault in the system could prevent the alarm from being set at all. Having an override risks abuse by the lazy.
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I’m out of town this week, but maybe when I get back I could mock up what I think is a workable solution, at least from the mech side of it. Integration into whatever monitoring system is used will have to be done by somebody smarter than me
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Well, if there’s a flat spring either on the bottom of the pane or in the bottom of the frame a window wouldn’t be able to be all the way closed without being latched. It seems simpler to just sense the window position than to try to detect the latch position additionally. If a window operates freely enough, and a simple flat spring prevents it from appearing closed (to the sensor) when unlocked but doesn’t make it difficult to latch that ‘should’ be more robust than trying to detect to very different things with separate sensors. It’s worth a try. When I was in engineering at Cessna my cubicle mate impressed me very much with the fire door principle. Getting the desired functionality with fewer elements and with well characterized failure modes always wins over adding components and complexity.
I support the idea of ‘bars’ of some sort over the windows to make it so someone can’t crawl through. It’s simple, and simple tends to work. Beyond that, reducing the number of operable windows seems reasonable. However, Mike has a good point about ventilation and mild weather.
I’m sure facilities has already put some good work into getting sticky windows un-sticky. Easy to open and close, and perhaps some sort of new latch that could be monitored simply would help make it easier for folks who do want to open windows to get them closed when they’re done.
A red light at the doorway that says there’s an open / unlatched window would be simple and doesn’t have to be tied to the alarm if that has a significant possible cost impact or user training / non-arming issue.
I’m happy to help build / do whatever clever idea gets figured out.
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Ideally, a spring would keep it from closing but many of the windows are extremely stuff to open and close. I’m a perfect world it would work but I would prefer not to rely on luck
We could even do something as simple as tacking on something to block a beam going along all the windows in a room unless it is all the way shut. That wouldn’t address them being locked, but if the beam were at the level of the locks, a small flag could be attached to also break the beam unless in the locked position. Hard to explain, perhaps hard to visualize, but pretty easy to implement. If any of the window attachments are out of alignment, then the beam would be blocked, meaning something is not right in that room.
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I suspect the curtains would render any cool invisible beams unreliable if not straight up frustrating.
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Maybe we could train a crow to check periodically?
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1 believe there are approximately 11 windows/room.
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There are a couple bags full of magnetic switches in maintenance. I’m not sure if they’re ear marked for other uses though.
If we switched to Linux, then we wouldn’t have to worry about Windows… 
But if we HAVE to work with Windows…
What about an ESP32/ESP8266 wired to magnetic switches on the windows? Only need one ESP per room with multiple switches. Could have a motion detector and/or LDR to detect if someone is in the room. It’d allow for lots of ways to notify people. Could have a buzzer or something go off in the room when a window is open and lights go off or no motion after some time. Also have a display by the exit to show which windows are open or have it report back to something like Home Assistant.
I still like bars as long as those windows aren’t “egress” for fire purposes. If they aren’t closing windows, are we counting on people turning off lights?
They often don’t. But lights left on it’s not a security issue.
I’ve always wanted occupancy sensors in the rooms. Data from those could be handy for understanding usage patterns and estimating how heavily used each area is. Also could let you know if someone else is in the building.
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Or just put some google minis in each room and just broadcast a message to the whole building… like an intercom.
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I use google at home and we are good friends. Broadcast messages is awesome, and is how my wife calls me to dinner. Timer function is indispensable. The ability to pause a show without a clicker is phenomenal. The house always has music playing. The best is when I go to bed. I say goodnight and she broadcast that I’m going to bed, turns on the bedroom lights, sets them to blue, plays soma fm deep space one. If you told me in 1997 when my wife and i first got together that i would have a voice activated house someday I’d be like dude that’s some George jetson shit. But then George jetson is born this year beginning of August. Soooo there is that I guess.
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk
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I like @David 's thought. We could use a laser sensor shooting over the windows to clear an attached obstacle when all of the windows are completely shut.
I have used a number of the lasers pictured below. Although the longest distance I have used them is about 2’…I think they would work well over a span of 10’-15’…maybe along the whole wall to allow all the windows to be opened. The challenge would be designing a bracket that allows for precise adjustment of the laser source and also supports the emitter. They aren’t held well by the board alone.
Then maybe use a Node MCU to talk over wifi to a board at the entrance with green and red leds to easily see whether all of the rooms are in condition for setting the alarm.
We could install latches (similar to below) so the window was automatically latched when closed. And you have to manually unlatch it to open.
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It would take a few small holes to have one laser for an entire side of the building
Then add some 45° mirrors and we can do the whole building.
Some one could just live there then there will never be a last one to leave! JK!
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