Next school year, my son will be left home after school for a few hours while my wife and I are at work. I’m looking for a way to detect when he’s home and have the front door unlock (among other automation scripts that are in place).
I came across this post and was going to get the Tile Pro as it seemed to check off all my requirements:
- I could put it in his backpack where it can be forgotten.
- long battery life.
- Through the Home Assistant integration, it can trigger when it gets in range.
- It also has a few other beneficial things, so I was thinking of putting one on each of our bicycles in case they’re ever stolen. Hell, I could look into putting one on my cat’s collar in case she ever gets out.
Then I came across some concerning articles regarding data harvesting. The whole reason I started self-hosting was to prevent data harvesting, so it seems like the Tile is a non-starter for me.
Has anyone been in this (or a similar) situation? Mainly, I’m looking for a device I can put in my son’s backpack that can trigger when he’s within range, so the house will open for him. BLE seems like it might be a solution, though I run my server on an old Dell r720 enterprise server in my basement, so I don’t currently have Bluetooth functionality (and it’s pretty far away from the front door, 20+ feet), though getting that is not a dealbreaker for me.
- Addendum: To people saying just get a key: we have a key for him. I have a monolith sized server in my basement that automates most everything in my house these days, and was curious if anyone had set up something similar to what I was thinking. Home automation is very much a hobby, and I’m using it to learn new things.
Disclaimer I don’t know the ins and outs of HA nor have I used it.
I’m not sure if you have the automatic lock/unlock part figured out but that’s the part I can’t help with.
In terms of detecting when kid comes home, some ideas:
A low power esp32 board coded to connect to your home network, then if the device name or MAC address is discovered on the network, or have the device send a message every 10 seconds or when a button is pressed.
NFC card and reader in front of the door, can be “hard wired” rather than over wifi if you prefer. The card doesn’t run out of battery but access still can be assigned or revoked if lost.
A passcode: many hardware store doorlocks offer this, if the main problem is your kid losing keys. Then just do automation inside the house as you see fit from motion detectors or whatever your heart desires.
E: a few people ITT don’t like to have fun thinking of ideas how to use home automation, even if it’s unnecessary.