Car at Home?

[heatvent]

Thanks for the input!

I'm like completelyhis, I might be in a company vehicle at times, or in my Jeep, or gone with the wife....the one thing that stays consistent though is that we always have our cell phones with us. I think I will just concentrate on detecting our cell phones. I have a working solution now using some of these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSLU2

It will detect any phone/bluetooth device whether it is in discover mode or hidden including my iphone. If there are any linux users that might be interested in a how-to just let me know (it will work with any linux using bluez tools but the modded firmware on a slug is just too cool).

How exactly are you using the slug? Do you connect a bt dongle? How does HS know that it has detected something?

[jasv]

How exactly are you using the slug? Do you connect a bt dongle? How does HS know that it has detected something?

I also would like to know.

[stevea]

I've talked about it here before, but I'm very happy with my CheaperRFID set up, and I use it to open and close the garage doors, announce arrivals / departures, and update my web page to show what cars are present (hidden from guests).

I installed one of the 12V-powered 40M boxes in each of two cars, and put 2 8M boxes in each of our three cars. They are cheap enough it doesn't hurt my head to have that many, and it makes the reliability pretty outstanding.

Although I announce and update the web as soon as all the tags for a car are out of range (or for arrival, at least one is back in range), in order for a car to be considered "really gone", all the tags had to be out of range for at least 5 minutes. I use this "really gone" for controlling the garage door, to keep the door from going back and forth in the event of a couple of tags dropping out at the same time (which doesn't happen much, may be once or twice a year).

The CheaperRFID hardware is better for distance but these too "eat" batteries, especially the quarter shaped batteries.

I see this comment now and then and I just don't get it. I've never had to replace one of the CR2032 batteries more often than once per year, and most of the ones I've got working in the tags right now are closer to 18 months old (I just checked). I don't kow why they would run down fast unless they were nearly dead when you bought them.

Steve

[rmasonjr]

Yeah, the CR2032 batteries last a long time. The only exception is in cold weather. When my truck is parked outside the garage in cold weather, I get a few more dropouts than usual.

Rupp - are you sure you're not using CR2025s instead of CR2032s?

[Rupp]

Yeah, the CR2032 batteries last a long time. The only exception is in cold weather. When my truck is parked outside the garage in cold weather, I get a few more dropouts than usual.

Rupp - are you sure you're not using CR2025s instead of CR2032s?

No, I'm (or was) using the CR2032's in my 40M transmitter. I have since switched it over to AA's and they last forever. My smaller 8M devices batteries last a lot longer.

[heatvent]

No, I'm (or was) using the CR2032's in my 40M transmitter. I have since switched it over to AA's and they last forever. My smaller 8M devices batteries last a lot longer.

Steve, I would expect it's the 40M vs 8M power drain since your 40M devices are hard wired.

Rupp, how do you have the AA's connected? Do you have 4 AA's wired to the 6V unregulated post on the 40M transmitter? I know there is another thread where someone said they tried a 9v on the regulated post and got really poor results (2 weeks).

I have been contemplating my RFID purchase and I keep bouncing back and forth between the one with the cr2032 batteries and the 12v version, although a good battery pack setup would certainly persuade me.

[Wadenut]

Looking for suggestions. Where would be the best place to position a 40M tag in a car? I've tried the sunglasses compartment above the windshield with no luck. If I just set the tag on the roof of the car in the garage (no I'm not about to glue it there) it works fine. Somewhere near a 12V supply would be ideal.

[nightwalker]

Looking for suggestions. Where would be the best place to position a 40M tag in a car? I've tried the sunglasses compartment above the windshield with no luck. If I just set the tag on the roof of the car in the garage (no I'm not about to glue it there) it works fine. Somewhere near a 12V supply would be ideal.

In our cars I have one on the dashboard, sort of behind the inspection stickers, another on the rear shelf, sitting behind the 3rd stoplight housing.

[rmasonjr]

In my truck, I have it double-stick-taped behind the rearview mirror. In my wife's SUV, it's mounted on the dash in the corner on the passenger side. The third vehicle just has it tucked in the map compartment in the door.

[RAM]

Looking for suggestions. Where would be the best place to position a 40M tag in a car? I've tried the sunglasses compartment above the windshield with no luck. If I just set the tag on the roof of the car in the garage (no I'm not about to glue it there) it works fine. Somewhere near a 12V supply would be ideal.

I have one under the dash in my car ('98 dodge stratus) and one in the ceiling console in our van ('05 Chrysler T&C) and both (40M versions) work at least 100 ft from the receiver.

[Wadenut]

A big priority is to keep the tag out of sight. Above the windshield ('07 Nissan Altima BTW) would be my first choice as there's a map light there I could use to supply power to the tag. Routing the antenna seems to be the issue there. Hanging straight down as a test, which I thought would allow it to radiate out the window, didn't work. The only other option at that location is going to be to tuck it up under the windshield which will orient the antenna at 90 degrees to the receiving antenna when the car is parked in the garage, minimizing coverage.

[Wadenut]

Just had a thought. I could just get a second receiver and set it up in the garage. Receiver --> Quatech SDS --> Linksys WLAN bridge --> router --> LAN --> PC. I knew all this stuff I bought would come in handy eventually.

[rmasonjr]

True - mounting mine on the ceiling of the garage was the best move I made. I just ran ~50ft of cat5 back to the serial port and used an external power supply plugged into the garage door outlet in the ceiling.

[stevea]

True - mounting mine on the ceiling of the garage was the best move I made. I just ran ~50ft of cat5 back to the serial port and used an external power supply plugged into the garage door outlet in the ceiling.

Or:

I modified the receiver enclosure and mounted an F-Connector on the end, ran TV cable from the receiver (which stayed by my HS machine in the basement) the 100 feet out to the garage, and connected it to a 1/4-wave "cross" antenna mounted on the ceiling of the garage. I also put a Radio Shack RF amplifier (one that plugs right into the TV-cable) in line. With this set up the 40M transmitters (with no external antenna, just the one coiled up inside the box) gives me close to a quarter mile range in some instances. When my wife is coming home, the garage door is fully open by the time she can even see the house.

Steve

[someguysname]

How exactly are you using the slug? Do you connect a bt dongle? How does HS know that it has detected something?

Yes, I have a bluetooth dongle in the disk 1 position and I load the bluez packages on the slug. I have a script that runs on the slug over and over constantly polling for BT devices. I have a bluetooth GPS receiver in my jeep and a bluetooth headset in the wifes car mounted in a hobby box from Radioshack along with the insides of a car charger. I have a 12 volt plug on the end of the wire coming out of the box that can plug into the cigarette lighter.

Basicly what happens is the slug polls for the name of my bluetoth devices using hcitool name MAC ADDRESS and I pipe it to a file. Then I check to see if the file is empty or not...empty means it wasnt found, something in it means the device is around. If it's not empty I then drop a file on the HS server using smbclient. HS looks every minute to see if there are any files in the drop folder and updates the status accordingly.

The neat thing about using the linux hcitools is that it can tell if ANY bluetooth device is around, even my iPhone....