The further north you go the earlier the sun sets. At this time of year, especially after the DST change, the night fell quite early. So when the "houseboi" show up after school, it is already dark. Since there is no street lights and my parking sits at about 300ft from the house, the pathway amongst the trees is in complete darkness. I'm seeking a simple solution to let him turn on the pathway lights from the security of his car without having to install anything on his phone.
After looking at many convoluted or expensive solutions, I think giving him a NFC tag with an encoded cloud endpoint he could scan would be the easiest.
So because the kid doesn't know better, he has an iphone . Would that still be feasible?
The thing is, being an amateur astronomer, I'm all against light pollution. I don't want the lights let on for nothing or to turn on for everybody that show up.
With ESPresence you register the Bluetooth ID and that gets registered as an entity in HA. From there you have a specific device for your helper in HE and can automate lights just for that phone being detected.
And if you get multiple ESP32s you can coordinate the location to know which board the phone is closest to
Good question you can put the board in a box which will help but they do require mains power.
Another thought is a garage door button. Does he have them in the car or maybe you purchase one on Amazon. Then there are sensors to pick those up and integrate with HE. Saw a post let me find it
Default range is 15 meters but I have changed my few I have deployed to much closer. I am not fully setup yet but in testing was surprised of all the Bluetooth devices it picked up. There is a webpage to see all the devices and its distance from the board.
Do you happen to have a spare ESP32 to flash and test with?
Have you gone down Lutron Caseta rabbit trail? Assume they are available in Canada. I have a Pico using their visor mount in my car and buttons can perform actions. Range is pretty good too.
Check out this video and full description. There are different ESP32s with 30 pins vs 38 which you don’t need for ESPresence. He has a link to a nice case for the 30 pin model:
Geez...I had no idea. No idea what I'd want to do w/a Pico that far from my home, but now I gotta know. Going to be walking down the road and pushing Pico buttons tomorrow to see if I can get range like that here. Probably depends on number of routers/APs/other RF stuff in the area. Fun stuff.
What about Tasker...I've never done anything like this, but from a quick Google it looks like it's supported - kid can send a specific text to @ymerj, and Tasker would then kick off a task that tells the hub to turn on the lights. Seems possible/simple, no new HW needed. Just need to train the kid to send a text.
. Would that still be feasible?
Going to be walking down the road and pushing Pico buttons tomorrow to see if I can get range like that here. Probably depends on number of routers/APs/other RF stuff in the area. Fun stuff.
