Home/Away presence detection for people/vehicles/pets

[bdeshazer]

I would like to make my home automation system (Misterhouse) aware when family members and vehicles are home/away. Pets would be nice as well (German Shepherd dog, cat) but optional. I can handle the programming side of things, just looking for advice on hardware.

I tried the "CheaperRFID" stuff when it first hit a couple years ago but could never get the receiver to work with an external antenna to get the range I wanted. The simple beacon functionality that indicated here/not here is perfectly sufficient for what I want to do.

Ideally I would like to be able to detect a bit beyond the 3 acres of land my house sits on.

All my HA equipment is in a basement wiring room and I have antennas running up to the attic for things like my W800RF32, WiFi, etc.

Curious what others are using sucessfully for this functionality.

I could certainly use a microcontroller and something like the Xbee devices and design a system myself, but I figured I'd see what others might be using before I went this route.

Thanks!

 

[Penman]

Since my vehicles are always parked in a garage in a particular spot, I use an infrared door entry sensor to determine if the car is present or not. It is mounted on the garage ceiling several feet above the car roof. If the car is there, it reflects enough energy to the sensor to indicate presence; if the car is gone, any IR has to be reflected from the floor, and is too weak when reflected back to the sensor, which changes the sensor state, and it's contact closure.

 

[bdeshazer]

Thanks Penman, to clarify a bit further I'll want to track a total of 4 vehicles, 2 of which are normally kept in the garage and 2 are outside. However, there are times when "normal" doesn't occur, like when my wife or I are traveling and one of my daughters claims our regular spot in the garage until we return home. Therefore, I need to not just identify if a car is present or not in a garage, but /which/ vehicle is present.