Just saw this over on reddit and thought it looked very promising. They are using BT in a raspberry pi zero w to monitor room presence with things such as your phone or apple watch. May be worth a weekend project.
Nice! I still have a pi zero w doing nothing. Also 3 normal pi3b+'s. But don't have the time right now. Will have some time in a couple of weeks I think.
Thanks for the tip. I might have to build one. I've been using cameras for that level of detection but that's not perfect. I wonder if this related to the secret device mentioned on the last Hubitat video?
Don’t think so. It looks like a custom DIY solution. Looks promising though.
Had a Pi zero laying around, build is straight forward . However I'm very new to MQTT and I can't get any topics to register / nit sure of the syntax to retrieve. If I set up a virtual presence sensor in HE and MQTT link icon see the topics in the broker just not from Room-assistant. Have tried variety of integrations such Bluetooth classic and BLE with Android phone and galaxy watch but nothing being detected so far. I think there is some configuration required with the main broker that I'm missing. Will continue to firckle and see if I can get this to work.
Hello, I was wondering if anyone was able to get this working.
There are lots of issues/considerations to deal with. It's not DIY and certainly not user friendly to set up. It is slow - not fast enough for motion sensing nor accurate enough for placement and not battery friendly to BLE devices by constantly querying them. Lastly, writing it in bash does not encourage further development. It's also sensitive to device placement and BLE versions. Two different devices - say a pi0 and a pi3 will get two different lists of nearby beacons - only a few of them might be yours.
Thanks for the thorough explanation. I find that even two motion sensors in a larger room are not enough to report my presence if I am sitting still in a room watching TV for example.
What is the best way to handle this kind of situation to get reliable room occupancy reporting?
It's in the name: Motion Sensors detect motion - not people sitting still. For the latter, I use cameras and people detection software and combine them with motion zones. Not and easy route if you seek perfection.
