ZigBee Arrival Sensor For Car

Depending on how much material you need to remove, a nibbler might work for you.
https://www.amazon.com/ProsKit-900-215-Nibbler/dp/B000BN60XW

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Thanks for the suggestion. I will look into it

I have assembled the other PCB in this batch. I am going to use 3 of them for myself. I have 7 left to share with everyone who are interested to try it out.

You will need the following items to complete the sensors.

  1. The PCB will fit in the following case. This is probably the most tricky part of the DIY. You will need to drill one hole on each panel to fit an SMA connector and USB cable. There is another option which I will mention later.
  1. An antenna like bellow. This is an example of 2.4 GHz antenna that is available in Amazon. Please feel free to try out other antenna. Please help me trying out different antenna.
    I am searching for external antenna with magnetic base myself. This will allow better range.
    Antenna like on the listing comes with SMA to IPX cable converter. If you look at the SMA connector side, this is what you have to mount to one side of the panel.
  1. LIPO battery like below. Please note, you can use any Lipo 1S battery with PH 2mm JST connector. Please make sure that you are getting capacity of 300mAH at minimum. You probably do not need bigger that 600mAH. LIPO battery sometime comes with battery protection. You do not need battery that has the board has battery protection. If you are not familiar with battery protection, typically smaller battery will not have protection. If you end up with battery that comes with protection, it is not the end of the world. It is just wasting energy because the protection will need current from the battery. Please pay attention on the battery size. The case above will take maximum approximately 56 mm battery length.
  1. Optionally, you can fit a specific Microwave radar sensor below. The microwave radar will fit inside the case. However, it will not work as the aluminum will block the radar signal. You have to figure out how to mount it outside the case and route the connection to J3. I will give you a wiring diagram for it. There are similar looking module in Aliexpress. Please make sure you get the one with 68uA power consumption.

I can assemble the module like below. It may be easier for you to fit on the case. But, I personally have harder time cutting the panels on the box to match the USB and the SMA connector. I cannot make it like a factory cut.

If you are interested on the module or have any questions, please PM me. The cost of the board assembled in either configuration is $29 + $5 shipping to US address. This will help me recover the cost of the components needed to build the board. In the future, if there are reasonable demand for this sensor, I could probably package them with all the extra components (except with battery). I would consider making them at much higher volume to get better pricing.

Thank you for your support. This community has been amazing to support me on my other project. As a hobbyist, It has been fun for me to make unique sensor for all of us.

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Here is a 2 minutes video of the arrival sensor in action in my home. I cut the video so that it does not get too long.

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Looks awesome, Car specific sensors are definitely a gap in HA.

I have a DIY xbee, but it 1) doesn’t shut off with the car and 2) isn’t picked up very well by the hub.

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I plug my Xbee3 into the USB outlets on my cars and they power on/off when I start or stop my cars.
The Xbee3 has much better range than the old Xbee.

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Well I need more of them. Pretty cool. Still testing but so far great.

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My car's old and doesn't have any USB outlets. The cigarette lighter-style power ports seem to always be on. I doubt the car battery would get drained very quickly, but I don't drive that often.

The range didn't seem to be very good even with xbee3. Not sure why. I'll have to play with it some more.

I'd be happy to pay for a turnkey solution though!

@roofone you can get a fuse box adaptor for a usb port just make sure you select a fuse outlet on the car's fuse box that powers off when you turn off your car or you could just buy a new car :wink:
For my Xbee3 I did attach a external antenna with a cable and placed the antenna on my dash.

nice how it displays dc or battery power looks like the range is similar to the Xbee3.
I did notice the Xbee3 was very dependent on how fast I was driving.
Going from your video it looks like the Xbee3 detects similar yours but if I stopped a 1/8-1/4 mile away to get my mail it will detect the Xbee3 sooner than normal.
I expect yours will likely be the same.

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I think the power should be similar with Xbee in general. The module that I use has external power amplifier that can transmit at +20dbm. Based on my observation, a reasonably modern car shield wireless signal in GHz range pretty tights. The combination of steel body and glass make the signal hard to get through.

One thing that I am trying currently that help is to install external magnetic antenna. The antenna has quite long cable that will reduce the signal strength. However, at the same time, having the antenna outside the car, it does not get restricted by the glass and steel of the car. It does improve the range.

Here how it looked like

Google Photos

I got mine from here.

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@tmcdonald, let me sort through all the request for the sensor. I think I may have a few to share with you at some point. I will PM you with an update.

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If you hhave any left I would be interested as well!!

Always impressive what you are able to put together.

Will you be building a communication module for syncing deployment of these next ? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

What if you put a contact sensor on your windshield and when the hub sees the sensor it takes action, then to prevent false positive you could put an optical sensor like the garage door safety beam either across a car space or from ceiling to floor. If beam is interrupted car is home so if the sensor signal gets interrupted and regains it wouldn't take action. Then when you drive away you can see which car is home or gone and when the sensors comes online in the zwave network you can see when they are home. maybe?

@mjruotolo, I have sent you PM how to proceed.

@PunchCardPgmr, you probably just need some sort of digital output to control an on/off state. If you have any detail of the interface to the roadshark, I probably can help. I looked their website briefly. I did not see anything in term for being able to interface to it. Feel free to PM me, lets take it on separate thread for the roadshark.

You are ever-so-diligent in your contributions and offers of assistance.
In this case, I was just joking about the Roadshark.
I was just watching your video and thinking-
"now he just needs drive-away-deterrence to protect those cars". :rofl:

Oh.. got it :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

I since I can detect motion around the car. I am not sure whether it is visible that the motion sensor detect my son before even he opened the door. I could set up something less subtle like turning on a light on my driveway just to help with securing the car.

It is also actually possible to set up something like "home alone you filthy animal" warning from inside the house. Of course on vacation mode only.

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Here is a 2 minutes video of my setup with my Arrival Sensor with Hubitat and Alexa.

This video contains Alexa command. Please watch is away from your Alexa devices if you do not want to have your garage door closed accidentally.

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My Alexa tried to lock my garage door while watching. Haha!

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