Idea: Zigbee/Home WiFi based proximity switching...

[JAY70]

... for events when a User leaves or arrives home. Without having direct User interaction.

 

I'm just spitballing an idea here and would love some feedback/collaboration on this idea. At first I had entertained the idea of geofencing. The more I think about it I am convinced that using a WiFi keepalive method would be a better approach.

Any thoughts or ideas?

[booch]

I thought of the same and have it on my list. Either we're both very smart or missing something obvious, ha. I'm pretty sure my UDM driver allows for events based on client activity, which would make it even easier. 

[booch]

On 11/24/2021 at 11:26 PM, booch said:

I thought of the same and have it on my list. Either we're both very smart or missing something obvious, ha. I'm pretty sure my UDM driver allows for events based on client activity, which would make it even easier. 

So I gave this a try and it works great! The driver is able to trigger an event within a few (~3) seconds of my or my wife's phone coming or going (which I've tied to variables). My network is strong and well-defined, so I'm pumped to use it for geofencing/occupancy.

Anyone have any good ideas for how to identify whether a particular vehicle is in the garage? I looked at some RFID stuff but it seems expensive plus work to integrate. Best current idea is $30 TP-Link Nano clients in each car (as beacons), replicating the above approach.

 

 

[Amr]

3 hours ago, booch said:

So I gave this a try and it works great! The driver is able to trigger an event within a few (~3) seconds of my or my wife's phone coming or going (which I've tied to variables). My network is strong and well-defined, so I'm pumped to use it for geofencing/occupancy.

Anyone have any good ideas for how to identify whether a particular vehicle is in the garage? I looked at some RFID stuff but it seems expensive plus work to integrate. Best current idea is $30 TP-Link Nano clients in each car (as beacons), replicating the above approach.

 

 

Apple’s AirTags! Actually I have an iPhone docked in my car that is doing the same.

[booch]

11 hours ago, Amr said:

Apple’s AirTags! Actually I have an iPhone docked in my car that is doing the same.

Ah, cool. I was thinking a driver would be needed. Do they have separate MACs visible on your home network when connecting via phone? (So I could use my current approach?)

[Amr]

3 minutes ago, booch said:

Ah, cool. I was thinking a driver would be needed. Do they have separate MACs visible on your home network when connecting via phone? (So I could use my current approach?)

No, they will only work outside your C4 setup, they are Bluetooth and will give u what u need in terms of notification directly on your iPhone.

The only way for your setup to work is the have a dedicated iPhone in your car, I have an old iPhone 8 that worked perfectly in my X3 Dock.

[JAY70]

I have been looking at IFTTT as a possible bridge. Thoughts?

IFTTT

[booch]

So to report back -- the TP-Link Nano approach worked. I'll post a pic later, but I weatherized the board, paired it with a 12v converter and installed it to a switched source under the hood of one of our cars. Through logic, it's pretty easy to establish coming/going/here. (Can also imply, in some cases, who's driving based on the phone logic.) The range/speed is good enough to open the correct garage door when the car is at the top of the driveway.

Only issue to work through is the UniFi driver tripping the offline event consistently. Was working great the other day, and works for our phones, so may just need to reset it or something.

[zaphod]

On 12/4/2021 at 12:17 AM, booch said:

So I gave this a try and it works great! The driver is able to trigger an event within a few (~3) seconds of my or my wife's phone coming or going (which I've tied to variables). My network is strong and well-defined, so I'm pumped to use it for geofencing/occupancy.

Anyone have any good ideas for how to identify whether a particular vehicle is in the garage? I looked at some RFID stuff but it seems expensive plus work to integrate. Best current idea is $30 TP-Link Nano clients in each car (as beacons), replicating the above approach.

Get a car with wifi connectivity?  I have a Tesla and when I pull into the garage it joins the LAN, not unlike the method you are using for your wife's phone.

[LollerAgent]

1 hour ago, zaphod said:

Get a car with wifi connectivity?  I have a Tesla and when I pull into the garage it joins the LAN, not unlike the method you are using for your wife's phone.

Yes - perfect solution.  Just buy a new car!

[zaphod]

On my Unifi Controller there is a page called Insights where you can see all of the neigbouring access points that your WAPs have seen.  I get dozens of "hits" per day including lots of the that are obviously cars - I have 7 Audi_**** hits, several MyGMC, MyCadillac, MyChevrolet, John's Truck, etc.  So it looks like all kinds of vehicles have Wifi access these days.

[booch]

5 hours ago, LollerAgent said:

Yes - perfect solution.  Just buy a new car!

 

4 hours ago, zaphod said:

On my Unifi Controller there is a page called Insights where you can see all of the neigbouring access points that your WAPs have seen.  I get dozens of "hits" per day including lots of the that are obviously cars - I have 7 Audi_**** hits, several MyGMC, MyCadillac, MyChevrolet, John's Truck, etc.  So it looks like all kinds of vehicles have Wifi access these days.

Agree with ya'll in that all of our cars actually have wifi hotspots; however, to use the driver in question they have to be wifi clients on my home network, which they're natively not. Is there an event for scanning in the driver I'm unaware of?

[booch]

 

Edit: Will have to take a better video that doesn't kill my attachment quota, ha. (Removed.) Point being, the signal/speed is strong enough to have the door fully open by the time I'm there, even if driving very quickly.

Here's a picture of the weatherized board (without top case) and the 12v converter in my wife's car. Only other parts were wire, a fuse tap and misc. electric finishing (e.g., press connectors, glue gun).

 

[JAY70]

8 hours ago, booch said:

 

Not the greatest video, but you can see in my rearview cam that the door is already open by the time I'm there (despite the quick/empty-road pace, ha).

Here's a picture of the weatherized board (without top case) and the 12v converter in my wife's car. Only other parts were wire, a fuse tap and misc. electric finishing (e.g., press connectors, glue gun).

 

Excellent work! Great option for when the vehicle doesn't have native WiFi.

[booch]

1 hour ago, JAY70 said:

Excellent work! Great option for when the vehicle doesn't have native WiFi.

Thanks! Another consideration is control and signal strength. The cars actually do have their own WiFi, but those systems behave differently. I first tried keeping the (additional) WiFi client in the cabin, but it takes way longer to connect (and as such, the door was 'late'). With the unit behind the front grill, the door is open ~100yrds away.

[JAY70]

1 hour ago, booch said:

Thanks! Another consideration is control and signal strength. The cars actually do have their own WiFi, but those systems behave differently. I first tried keeping the (additional) WiFi client in the cabin, but it takes way longer to connect (and as such, the door was 'late'). With the unit behind the front grill, the door is open ~100yrds away.

Good to know. I was experimenting a bit with my phone for this. I can set a keep alive routine on a device internally. Now just trying to noodle through best practice for integrating it into C4.

[booch]

9 hours ago, JAY70 said:

Good to know. I was experimenting a bit with my phone for this. I can set a keep alive routine on a device internally. Now just trying to noodle through best practice for integrating it into C4.

Yeah. Another option if you wanted to use existing transceivers might be an outdoor directional antenna on your WiFi. I have two outdoor APs in omni now, but that probably would have worked too.

I'm also installing two magnetic displacement sensors in the driveway to identify cars coming in and out, which I'll probably pair with this programming to prevent misfires in edge cases.

[istreich]

Another option is using Dakota Alert driveway sensors in particular their new unit https://dakotaalert.com/product/dual-4k-plus/. It obviously won't tell you which car but it can tell you if it is an arriving or departing vehicle. It is very reliable and integrates easily with Control4. Detection range is solid and in most cases, it would allow you to install the receiver right next to your Control4 receiver for wired connection.

That would provide a nice addition for non WiFi vehicles as well as guests/visitors.

And if you use outdoor cameras, and want to track people (in addition to cars), you can use Blue Iris with DeepStack and generate alerts that will specify vehicle, person, object... The AI works quite well and is constantly getting better. This could be an interesting solution in a garage or front door for example. I know some people are using LPR (license plate reader) with Blue Iris but I don't have personal experience with it. 

[cjh]

On 12/4/2021 at 12:17 AM, booch said:

So I gave this a try and it works great! The driver is able to trigger an event within a few (~3) seconds of my or my wife's phone coming or going (which I've tied to variables). My network is strong and well-defined, so I'm pumped to use it for geofencing/occupancy.

Anyone have any good ideas for how to identify whether a particular vehicle is in the garage? I looked at some RFID stuff but it seems expensive plus work to integrate. Best current idea is $30 TP-Link Nano clients in each car (as beacons), replicating the above approach.

 

 

Would love to give this a shot. Could you elaborate more on the UDM driver you are using? Is this the annex4 unifi driver? Looks like a great solution and would love to try. Thanks.

 

[booch]

Happy to help. I'm using the Cinegration driver, but if there are others that can trip events based on MAC on/off activity, then that'd work with my approach too.

[cjh]

15 hours ago, booch said:

Happy to help. I'm using the Cinegration driver, but if there are others that can trip events based on MAC on/off activity, then that'd work with my approach too.

The cinegration driver seems to be a bit more robust but I was able to get this working on the annex4 version. Neat. Will let this run for a few days and see how it goes. 

Thanks for the idea and prototyping.