Beacons for presence (hardwired to car ignition?)

DaneT
Sun, 23 Jun 2019 02:10:57 +0000
Projects & Stories

Hi all,

Contemplating ways to automate my garage doors. I have two single doors, and always park the same vehicle in the same stall. I am looking for ways to automatically open/close the doors, without using a geofence on phones (security reasons). I was wondering if anyone had hardwired beacons to their ignitions, each broadcasting a different tag, and used something like an RPi as a receiver? My thinking is a unique beacon for each vehicle, then use Webcore to say “if xxxx beacon present, open garage door 1” and so forth for the second door and that vehicle. If wired to the ignition, it will only be visible when key is on, so I could open the door when leaving by turning the key on (but not starting until door starts going up), and open when arriving within range of the receiver (with, say a 5min cooldown between possible activations to prevent the door going nuts). Does this sound feasible, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

I also considered having my wife and I’s phones as receivers to a single garage-mounted beacon, but this would create problems with being at home, as well as the fact I have an android and she an iphone, and we sometimes switch vehicles.

For the openers themselves, I have them integrated to ST via a Konnected board and relays, and have tilt sensors for open/closed awareness, so that part isn’t an issue.

7 posts - 4 participants