Hi All,
UPDATE: After I wrote the instructions below, someone who is much more knowledgeable about HA made an improved version of this project. So, if you want to give his write-up a try first, you can find it at: Link to Kyle’s Write-Up
Please continue reading below for my version and a link to the full write-up on Blue Charm’s website…
I recently wrote up instructions for how to use a beacon and BLE (USB) gateway to remind you to take out the trash cans on trash night. It works great for me, but I am not 100% sure that these instructions are understandable, so if anyone can give it a quick read through and critique, that would be very much appreciated.
Before you click the link below, the basic idea is (quoting from my write-up):
"In most areas of the US, your trash can(s) needs to be put out on the curb late at night, the night before the morning that the trash trucks come by to empty the can.
So in this project, we are going to attach a beacon to one of the trash cans, and place a BLE beacon-scanning gateway (BCG04) inside the garage (or wherever the cans are usually stored). The gateway will scan for this known beacon, then send this scan data to our Home Assistant (HA) installation running on the same wifi network. The HA can be anywhere in the house as long as it is connected to the same wifi.
The HA will have an MQTT server integration installed on it, in order to act as an MQTT server. So the MQTT server on the HA will receive the data from the gateway, and make it available to any service on the HA (or any other “subscriber” on the same wifi network) that wants to use this data.
Next, we will create an MQTT sensor (sort of a virtual sensor since there is no hardware) on the HA. This sensor will report the signal strength of the beacon.
But since the signal strength of all BLE beacons is sometimes a bit jumpy due to signal bouncing and wifi interference, we will create a second “filter sensor” that will smooth this MQTT sensor data.
Finally, we will create an HA automation that checks:
1. Is the signal strength of the beacon pretty strong, i.e. is the trash can near the gateway? In other words, is the trash can inside the garage (for example)?
and
2. Is it trash night between 8:15pm and 11:00pm?
If so, then send a critical reminder notification to our smartphone HA app telling me/us to move the trash cans out to the curb.
We will also add one more condition to this automation that will prevent this reminder from being sent more often that once every 15 minutes."
Thanks,
Thomas at Blue Charm
Here’s the link for the full project write-up: