Possible integrate The Tile as a presence sensor

[jlrichar]

I use the location plugin. It works really well. I also have motion trackers in each room. So I can tell if someone is in the room-just not who. "Who" would be nice, but I think that's not my interest in the subject of this thread. My main interest is stuff tracking in and out of the house. StickNFind pretty much sums it up. I would stick one on each car, on each bike, on kids iDevices, on keychains, each cat. Then I could action based on which car came home, which bike left, find my kids istuff even when they are off or out of batteries.

I use a bluetooth smart dongle on my win8.1 that seems to be super reliable:

http://www.mouser.com/Search/m_Produ...52b0t2fg%3d%3d

While "thing" tracking could be done with rfid, i have seen good solutions for car tracking but not for smaller things that require minuscule trackers. And really something like that is not as good as a StickNFind type thing since my phone would also work with it. Imagine trying to find your keys or iItems while on vacation. As long as you still had one iDevice configured to find stuff you still could do so. With RFID it is a one trick pony.

I would love a plugin that used StickNFind. Even better would be a plugin that just worked with all of these bt smart beacons.

[TomTom]

I use a bluetooth smart dongle on my win8.1 that seems to be super reliable:
http://www.mouser.com/Search/m_Produ...52b0t2fg%3d%3d

Thanks jlrjchar, I'm gonna try this on my beta hs3 machine.

[TomTom]

Adam(mrhappy) we may be in luck.

henkrick (of MySensors) says:
It should be fairly simple to add Bluetooth LE for proximity detection to the MySensors network e.g. start with the BinarySwitch MySensors Arduino sketch and modify it to support the Bluetooh LE module from Adafruit.
The plugin doesn't care about the actual sensors being used as long as the sensor nodes are communicating according to the defined protocol.

http://board.homeseer.com/showthread...45#post1149345

Do you see any potential problems since your miles ahead of most of us on this matter.

[Furious]

I use a bluetooth smart dongle on my win8.1 that seems to be super reliable:

http://www.mouser.com/Search/m_Produ...52b0t2fg%3d%3d

When you say reliable, are you using it for proximity using jon00s plugin or whatever, or just attaching peripherals?
I'm thinking of upgrading my HS server to 8.1 just to get the more reliable BT stack which supports LE better - the other stacks might be the problem for the dongles.

[jlrichar]

I use it to connect a bunch of fitness equipment to a training program. I had been connecting that same equipment to my iPhone for more than a year and it was a little flaky-sometimes some of the stuff would not connect without re-scanning or even resetting the phone. In win8.1 with that dongle it is rock solid. The windows training program I use came with a driver for that specific dongle. This is not something that would do anything new with Jon00's great plugin-which I use, and have for years.

[mrhappy]

Adam(mrhappy) we may be in luck.

henkrick (of MySensors) says:
It should be fairly simple to add Bluetooth LE for proximity detection to the MySensors network e.g. start with the BinarySwitch MySensors Arduino sketch and modify it to support the Bluetooh LE module from Adafruit.
The plugin doesn't care about the actual sensors being used as long as the sensor nodes are communicating according to the defined protocol.

http://board.homeseer.com/showthread...45#post1149345

Do you see any potential problems since your miles ahead of most of us on this matter.

The issue was never getting the data from the Arduino to HS, this can be done very easily without any plugin at all, you can handle simple data (ie is the tile detected or not) or even complex data just by using a script.

I am looking at it now whether the nrf8001 is even the device for you as I may have thrown you off balance with it, looking at the guidance it says

The nRF8001 is specifically designed for Bluetooth low energy applications that operate in the Peripheral (Slave) role. Examples include: proximity tags, PUID watches, remote controls, and sports/fitness/healthcare sensors. The on-chip Link Layer and Host stack also include support for Peripheral GAP role, client, server and security functions.

as I say I tied myself up in knots with BT LE, this I have just found http://mbientlab.com/blog/bluetooth-...-introduction/ seems to explain things with a bit more clarity. I don't see that a tile could communicate with it because both the nRF and the tile will be peripheral devices whereas one would need to be a central device (I know it mentions 'server and security functions but I am not sure this means it can be a master, if it does I doubt it is easy). Options there being a phone, tablet or PC which are the only master devices it would appear. Whether you can get a similar device which is a master I do not know, I don't imagine it would be that easy to talk to really.

I think a much more easier option would be to throw some tablet in a cupboard, leave it on charge and then have some application on the tablet talking to HS.

[TomTom]

I think a much more easier option would be to throw some tablet in a cupboard, leave it on charge and then have some application on the tablet talking to HS.

This is a great idea actually.
I think you're right nRF and tile are peripheral devices

In my quest to figure this out, I ran across PiBeacon($99). It transmits and scans as a beacon. http://store.radiusnetworks.com/coll...ducts/pibeacon
PiBeacon can be used with iOS and Android

So I was thinking
PiBeacon(scanner) connected to HS.
iPhones serve as iBeacon(transmitter)

[Furious]

That looks like just some bespoke application coded and bundled with the pi.

I found the following, anyone who knows a bit of python should find this works. I'm wondering if the above bundle is just a redone version of this:
http://www.switchdoc.com/2014/08/ibe...canner-python/

BTW, it also mentions that the normal hci toolset scanning does actually lock up BLE dongles, so that's nice to confirm. I'm planning on installing an extra BLE dongle in my pi, using the old one to sense presence via old BT, and the BLE dongle to play around with beacons (if you check the python sample script, you can specify device #)

[TomTom]

Furious,
All this sounds so promising... I think this is "do-able"...
RadiusNetworks makers of PiBeacon had a start from scratch diy tutorial link, but the page was removed.
I like the fact the PiBeacon has a dual beacon version. One for scanning and the other for transmitting.
I'm gonna go through the PiBeacon tutorial and your link as soon as I get sometime to comprehend all this.

Also I'm not sure if you can do this but I saw a image file for updating older PiBeacon versions and thought may be you could just burn this on to your disk so that you skip a bunch of steps.
http://developer.radiusnetworks.com/...on-update.html

[kideon]

Pi beacon seemed like one of the best candidates plus it offloads processing away from homeseer

[TomTom]

I've written Radius Networks about this proposed project and their input.
Lets see if we can finally have a reliable presence/proximity sensor for Android and iOS.

[TomTom]

Jared was kind enough to give us some guidance:

"Hi Tom,I've spent the last day thinking about your message, read the board, and thought about a scenario that was brought up when we first launched the PiBeacon.
The customer had already set up a massive amount of home automation. His biggest problem was that he wanted a better way to open his garage door when he pulled up. By connecting the PiBeacon to his system he was able to make the door open when his car was detected. I'm still not sure if his phone alone could have solved this issue, but he used a USB Beacon in his car's USB port to signal his door when the car was in proximity. It had an open function on entry and a close function when out of proximity of the Pi. When the car was off the USB received no power so the door stayed closed.
Can your phone be the Beacon in this situation? I believe so, but the app functioning that way would need to be constantly in the foreground to force your systems to run. Take a look at this blog post about making a lamp turn on with proximity http://developer.radiusnetworks.com/...n-ibeacon.html
I think for many automated processes, a physical beacon, probably battery powered, or maybe a rechargeable USB port (keychain, handheld or the like) would be the most viable solution. But I suppose it comes down to individual need.
I thought of creating an account to speak with you all on the site, but ultimately did not. Feel free to post this back on the board if it helps anyone out. Maybe I'll join you guys in my off-time really insightful conversation going on there.
Thanks,
Jared Rockwell"

[TomTom]

So most likely we can't use the smartphones are tags/beacons. We will most likely have to use a BLE tag(coin battery) or USB BLE say for a car. So this is pretty much like Jon00 Bluetooth(non-BLE) method.

With a BLE beacon on your key chain and USB BLE it would provide a redunty method to check is a person was home or away.
So now we have scanner(PiBeacon) and sensor(BLE tag or USB BLE), but how can raspberry pi communicate this data to homeseer.

Gonna need the help of some software guru's like Adam, Jon00, or Greig...

[TomTom]

Ok, so Bluetooth LE can detect distances and can used to identify as a person moves from room to room or floor to floor. You would need a pibeacon in each room and or floor. This may not be practical since you're not likely to carry your phone or ble tag room to room, but this would be great as you approach your front door(1 piBeacon) or if you have long drive way(1 pibeacon inside and 1 outside)
I know we all know this, but reading more into this is fascinating.

So the beacon can be used to detect three different states for our use- Far, Near, and Immediate. Far is about 10-14 feet, 1.5-10 feet, Immediate seems to be a few cm from the beacon.

So as far as home and away(ble detected or not)--not only could it detect your presence it could actually tell if you're coming(as your BLE distance decrease) or going(as your BLE distance increase) which Homeseer could use. This redundancy check would increase reliability as compared to some of the other methods used(cheaper rfid, motion, old bluetooth, etc)

And/Or your guest could be greeted with a push notification "Welcome to John's Casa" and "Pleasure having you here" as they leave.
Also in doing research- I believe the smartthings presence tag is BLE/Zigbee combo tag. I've seen this combo in several parts/components manufactures

Would be great if homeseer would jump in to integrate pibeacon with HS, as this would benefit both anrdoid, ios users, and if no smartphone ble tag users.

[mrhappy]

I am in the market for a presence detection system although I am not overly keen on paying for a tile that only lasts a year and does not have a replaceable battery (although I would do my best to take it apart and either replace the battery or convert it to run off a power supply (for a car)), I actually don't have a house to put a system in although that will hopefully change early next year so I don't really want to buy something for no reason at the minute.

If no one has picked up the baton by then I will look at doing something, my thoughts at the minute are a Linux install (be it R-Pi or whatever), BTLE dongle and then the Python BluePy package. A small Python script can easily talk to HS via the new JSON interface, albeit from the brief research I think it would be limited to just ascertaining whether or not a device is in range rather than trying to talk to one.