iBeacon to open garage?

Configuration
1

I need some ideas on how to make this work. I have a Pi with Hassio working next to a gate controlled by rpi_gpio. Ethernet gets there by Powerline and all works great. I can open/close remotely or from inside the house. But, I want the door to open automatically when my car (my phone) is close to the gate. And the gate is in an area with no cellular coverage, so I can’t trigger the automation using geofencing or MAC address detection. I can set up Wifi through power line over there, but the phone takes a while to log in it. Ideally, I kind of want the gate to be opening when I’m like 100 ft away from it (I know, first world problems). The only thing that comes to mind is using an iBeacon.

My questions are: can the iPhone act as an iBeacon transmitter? And more importantly, can the Pi with Hassio in it act as an iBeacon receiver? I have looked and searched in the forums but I can’t find any easy answers to this.
Thanks!

2

Don’t think you’ll get the distance with an iBeacon.

Saw this in another thread:

Maybe that could work for you.

3

Thanks @chairstacker, I had seen that before but since it uses WiFi as presence detector, it wouldn’t work in my gate. I’m thinking about setting up a long-range Ubiquity outdoor WiFi AP…?

4

So, you think that even the WeMos D1 mini Pro (with the external antenna) wouldn’t be able to see your home wifi?
Bummer :frowning:

5

Yeah, the house is in the middle of nowhere and the gate is far from the house. Powerline gets Internet there though, so maybe setting up a hotspot around the gate could work…