Vehicle detection

[itchyballs]

This is what I use and it works well. http://wirelesstags.net/
 
I have a sensor in every car and when the tag manager loses signal to the tag. It triggers an action to run a HTTP post.  Since I use Vera this it is pretty easy to run a away scene via HTTP post. 

 

[iostream212]

Itchy,
I scratched and sniffed around the site that you posted, and these tags look really neat. It is unfortunate that your first post is plugging an item, and that your moniker is possibly a cry for help.  That aside, I am second guessing using sticknfind over this product. SnF will have the advantage of being completely mobile. But other than that this product has got my wheels turning. Its cheap: $18 for a tag. Tag supports angle base motion sensing, temperature logging, beeping for locating, the tag manager can support hundreds of tags, 200ft range, iops and android apps, and an available api. Has anyone else heard of or used this product? 
EDIT: Tag manager is cloud based and requires internet connection.  :angry:

 

[pete_c]

Is there a means to make it work without the internet connection?

 

[electron]

Looks like it's an Ethernet based ZigBee gateway, so in theory, one should be able to reverse engineer this by running a proxy/wireshark.  But maybe they are open to making a non-cloud version, would be a pretty big deal if they did.

 

[electron]

I'll point them to this thread via Twitter.
 
But it looks like they do offer an SDK, and allow you to run your own server according to their FAQ:

 
Will we charge for usage of mytaglist.com and associated Web service?
We will not charge anything for the online service as long as we are in business. It costs very little (in the order of cents/month/user) to run the web service, and 99% of the cost of this product is in the hardware. Therefore it does not make sense to charge any monthly subscription fee. We will soon set up a mytaglist.com server clone (mytaglist.net) at UK and European orders will connect to this server for faster response time. You can request us anytime after shipping, that your Ethernet Tag Manager to be updated to use a different, or your own server. We can license you our server side software that suits your individual needs. 

 

[damage]

there's a thread on the hs board about this http://goo.gl/0tCY7

 

[electron]

Yea, but looks like they didn't get anywhere with removing the 'cloud' part

 

[itchyballs]

@iostream212

I am by no means pimping that product. I just happened to be surfing the forum and thought it would be nice to share what I use for this application.

Whatever floats your boat. My moniker stands for what I feel.

 

[itchyballs]

BTW I frequent micasa forum and that's where I found this tag system.

 

[iostream212]

Good info Dan if the vendors could remove that limitation. @itchy what is the response time like on these units. Any issues you have encountered?

 

[itchyballs]

It's customizable from 30 seconds to 4 hours. Obviously the frequency affects the battery life. I have my tags set to 10 minutes which for what I use them for (vehicle presence) is good enough.

I can only speak for the tag presence and temperature sensors as I have not thoroughly tested the motion detection and angle sensors. The temperature sensor only detects changes in temp and is not a "real" thermometer. You will need to calibrate it if you want the correct temp reported.

The beep/locate could've been a little bit louder. But I understand why they did that considering the battery capacity. The form factor is small enough to add to your keychain but pretty big for tracking things like a TV remote. I too am looking at that sticknfind option for that. More tags managers can be added to the system but I am not sure if location based triangulation can be done with at least three managers.

 

[pete_c]

Sounds interesting.  I wonder if a cloudless version will be sold? 
 
Thank-you Dan on the Homeseer references. 
 
I have a friend building a home in CO off the grid and internet; that said he is inquiring about home automation with just touchscreens because he is concerned that he will misplace a tablet or fall asleep on it breaking it(he does today misplace things in his home).  This device would interest that person.

 

[iostream212]

I may still try this out. Trying to pick between the SNF and this : I am having a hard time determining if my real intent is distance detection or just movement or a virtual fence. Anyone receive their SNF yet? I checked out the site the other day and it said it was available and it looked like the e-store was up and running... which makes me think: where is mine?! A trip to the mailbox only uncovered a plethora of ads and the always desirable water bill. Spoiler alert: usage is up.

 

[iostream212]

StickNFind arrived today! I would be happy, except the android app isn't available yet! Other than that the wheels are spinning on other ways to incorporate this technology. Still looking for the api if anyone got a hold of it.
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Edit: played around with it on iPhone and I was very disappointed. It had trouble staying connected, range indoors was pathetic, and the 'radar' feature jumped around like a fish out of water. Hopefully it's a resolvable software issue.

 

[electron]

Wondering what order they sent them out in, I haven't received any shipping notifications yet.  Hopefully the glitches you are describing aren't happening for everyone, or I can see this go down as one of the biggest failed crowd funded projects.