Catch Refrigerator Thieves with Raspberry Pi and OpenCV

Adrian Rosebrock, after being a victim of hummus theft on more than one occasion in college, has come up with a Raspberry Pi/OpenCV system to protect his foodstuffs. Granted, he now only lives with his wife, but if his refrigerator is raided by chickpea-hungry intruders, he’ll now know just who did it.

His security system resides inside the refrigerator, and detects the change in light available when the door is opened and closed using a Pi Camera and the OpenCV Python library. When triggered, the camera then records either the proper person loading or making a withdraw from the fridge, or a hummus, beer, etc. thief in the act of stealing goods from his food repository.

Instead of simply storing clips as evidence locally, the device uses Amazon Web Services with S3, along with Twilio to send clips immediately to Rosebrock’s phone. With this setup, he can now know immediately if someone is messing with his fridge. Additionally, the device features a routine where if the door is left open too long it sends him a separate text message. As shown in the video below, while it does do a good job of recording whoever “enters” the fridge, well planned attacks where the thief wears a mask will still likely be left unsolved.