ESP32 beacon scanner

[Michael McSharry]

Out of the box bluetooth has a much greater range than 18". I suspect you could hack the RF such as the circuit antenna trace to make it less. The chip may also be programmable to select the power level. The question then becomes dwell time between the sender/receiver as the receiver may filter too weak of a signal.

[Michael McSharry]

Many cars now use electronic keys. With the volume of cars sold there should be cheap hardware available. In my car, for example, the button to open the trunk will only work if the keyfob is no more than a foot or two away. Similar with ignition button and door locks. I do not know the technology specifically, but I suspect the energy is all in the car battery and the fob is parasitic without a battery.

[Timon]

Out of the box bluetooth has a much greater range than 18". I suspect you could hack the RF such as the circuit antenna trace to make it less. The chip may also be programmable to select the power level. The question then becomes dwell time between the sender/receiver as the receiver may filter too weak of a signal.

True however I think BluetoothLE allows you to measure the signal strength so even through it's further than 18" you can still keep it from triggering till its closer. Would not know until it's tested. I've also found that for what I want to use it for, my automated dog door, I could also use a touch sensor in combination. The dogs learn really fast what it takes to trigger the door.

Anyway, I'm going to start another thread for this subject.

[Michael McSharry]

I have run across a family of very low cost radar Doppler sensors that appear to provide good motion detection with ranges Around 10 ft. Most are omnidirectional. Range can be reduced by pot adjustment on the expensive ($10) version and SMD component replacement on $1 variety. I have not tried any myself, but likely will order a few to play with. Getting a backlog of IOT projects so not a priority, but does look interesting.

[kideon]

As a follow up on this I’m seeing examples of people playing with concept. This is a good example it could be adapted someone else did one that does mqtt. https://www.google.com/amp/www.instr...famp_page=true

So rather than having the phone scan for beacons and report to HomeSeer I could have scanners in fixed positions looking for tags. That with my current occupancy logic and it’s rock solid room by room vehicle by vehicle. Roll in nfc scanning and you have a full featured product