ZigBee Arrival Sensor For Car

only optional thing is going to a dollar store to find a case for it.
But you don't have to have one.
There is also 3d print case files that work great if you have a 3d printer.

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Perfect thanks. Love the community support. Will try out.

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Thank you. I do have 3d printers at work that I can use but I don’t care about the case at the moment. Lemme read the forums and see if I understand enough to get it working. This does seem like a good solution for automating garage door. How soon can it report the presence once it’s turned on from off state and also when it comes into range from out of range ?

I imagine the speed is dependent to a great extent on your Zibee network...you might need to experiment with a repeater in the garage/near the driveway to "catch" the Xbee signal when you arrive. Obviously it's really nice when the garage door is opening when you're just pulling into your driveway, rather than sitting in front of your garage door waiting for it to open. :slight_smile:

300ft indoor range, or 2mile outdoor/line-of-sight range.

transmits as soon as it is powered on.
transmit rate is programabled as you don't want to flood your hub.
I use 2 Xbee3 per vehicle one for arrival which is only powered on when the car is running and it is programmed to transmit every 5 seconds.
The second is always powered on and is set to transmit every 30 seconds just to show the car at home.
To only power on when running or always powered on you might be able to use your cigarette lighter or usb in the car or you have to figure out which fuse to use and get an adapter to tap into the fuse box (very easy to do just plug an adapter in)

Your range will also depend on how fast you are driving

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Being lazy, I'm sure this is covered in the Xbee thread. That range is impressive, but how do you keep your automations from opening your garage door when you start up your car at the local grocery store. :wink: Seriously, what do you implement to control range so your G-door won't open until you are actually home?

that is is best case range
I live in Canada nothing is that close
when you factor in moving vehicle they are just open or opening when I arrive home.
To get the best range like you said you need another one as a router in the gaage or with an antenna on the roof.

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Wow didn’t realize these things are expensive. So altogether with a router looking at close to $200 for just 1 sensor :cry:

only if you want the max range.
Using a second one as a router also expands the number of devices you can pair (up to 32 additional zigbee devices) to your hub.
The old smartThings arrival sensor transmits every 10 seconds was not programable and has no where near this range.

You can start with one in the vehicle and see if it good enough for your needs.

iharyadi's arrival sensor works great as well and has similar specs to the Xbee3 pro but is not programable.

Seems like iharyadi's sensors arent available anymore. I sent him a message and am waiting for a response,
So for 1 sensor I would need following ?:

XB3-24Z8ST Digi | RF and Wireless | DigiKey : $58

and

76000956 Digi | Development Boards, Kits, Programmers | DigiKey $43

So almost about $103 ?

yes that is correct

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At that rate, it might be cheaper to hire a neighborhood kid to press a Zigbee button from across the street that sets presence to Home when they see you drive up. :wink:

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Well I can't afford a Tesla so this is as close as I can get.

Kids now a days don't work.

These Xbee3 are not as cheap as they used to be but still cheaper than they were a few years ago during covid (they were 2x as much)

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just to be clear those are in Canadian peso not USD

There's also this 3 pack kit for $99US. (Edit: or $144CDN)
And a thread about setting them up.

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This one popped up today:

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@iharyadi we’ve been using these without issue for awhile now. Then all of a sudden, one of my car sensors intermittently stops recognizing power source events. And I rely on that to know the car has been turned on.

Then today it’s not even showing Present even though it’s definitely in the house and my hub is fine.

Any suggestions to troubleshoot?

I have not seen a sensor stop working on mine.

I would turn on the log on the device page. Let see if you are getting any activity.

If you do not get any activity, it could be the sensor does not get any power. I would check on that area.

If the log has some activity, you can try to click on reconfigure button on the device page.

No activity in the logs. The power is being delivered (other devices show a charge) but I suppose it’s possible the sensor itself isn’t receiving it properly.

Think I’ll try to reset it.

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So after I reset it (a few times), the behavior continued. Everything worked as expected except for powerSource. For my use case, the device doesn’t really function without that attribute.

Thankfully, I had a backup of @iharyadi’s awesome device. I set that up and everything works perfectly once again. Not sure why the former unit was bad.

@iharyadi, do you want me to send the unit to you for any diagnostic purpose? Otherwise, I’ll probably toss it. LMK your preference.

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