mmWave Presence Detection - ESPHome style

@david1
Check out the Remote Sensing section of this article:
https://www.mercku.com/2021/06/29/what-is-mmwave-and-how-does-it-work/

Iā€™m interested in buying one to test it out what happens if thereā€™s two people in the room? Can it detect my wife as another object with different vitals?

IO2 will be high.

The DFRobot does not track objects or vitals. I have other mmWave sensors, and even at twice the price as this DFRobot, only singular object tracking is provided. The RFBeam K-LD7 tracks a singular object - but it isnā€™t an occupancy sensor per say. Albeit I havenā€™t tried a 0% threshold.

Would be cool if someone could make some of these in a custom 3D printed case to sell to the community!

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Hi, can you say something about the feld of view? Is it like a cone with an angle (like 120Ā° or 180Ā°) or is it able to detect motion everywhere around it?

And which particular things are configurable? Just the maximum detection distance or would it be possible to split see the distance and or something like a section?

Take a gander at the wiki for specifications.

Based on the questions, I am guessing that you have been looking at the Aqara FP1 and the DFRobot is not that. Considering the price, I am quite pleased at how reliable it has been for me.

For more advanced features, you definitely gotta pay more. I have played with a few more mmwave sensors that provide greater tuning and it definitely makes it more difficult to get right.

Thanks for your quick response.
I already read the wikiā€¦ I got the question while reading it.

Based on the images I would think the sensor has a rather narrow field of view.
The description said something about a ā€œBeam Angle: 100*40Ā°ā€ but I am not sure what that is supposed to mean?

And then Iā€™ve read about the ā€œdetRangeCfgā€ and up to ā€œ4 segmentsā€. Could you explain to me what can be configured with this?

It took me a while to digest the wiki as well. I am no expert. I am not sure how to explain the beam angle any better. It is a pretty standard description used by other radars as well. They ā€œseeā€ in a certain cone based on vertical and horizontal angles from the sensor. You can use this information to understand placement orientation potential.

As for the segments. I have only played with a single one. My understanding is that you can potentially divide different distances into different detection triggers but I have not tested that. It would require UART parsing which is quite complex. GPIO is by far the simplest implementation approach. But that is limited to a single segment.

Okay, tanks a lot!

Anyone have experience with mmWave used in a room for presence detection when there is a fan or window open? Does the air movement cause false positives?

Also, does the mmWave interfere with WiFi?

A fan will absolutely trigger it.

Air movement makes a sheet/curtain/plant move? Triggered.

Interfer with wifi? Donā€™t see how unless you find a 5Ghz sensor.

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I have mine ceiling mounted in the bathroom and a candle burning in there will set it off.

Hello, this is a very interesting project.
Have you think about attaching the PIR directly, and not using an additional device?
Also attaching 2 dfrobot sensors for bigger detection zone?
Will they interfere with each other?

Good questions. I have considered adding a PIR. Since I already had a Hue PIR I didnā€™t pursue that further in this first iteration. My second iteration, using a POE ESP32, I will absolutely be including a PIR :wink:

While I do have two of these sensors deployed, each in a different room; there is no frequency/channel adjustment as far as I am aware. And would assume that interference is likely if in close proximity.

I do have other radars that are more expensive that offer frequency/channel adjust. Just not in the same price range.

Testing of the POE+mmwave+PIR has begun. Interestingly enough, placed side-by-side with an existing deployment didnā€™t seem to have any interference (15 min test to date).

If you are interested in building your own 60GHz detector, I would love to see a post from you here:
DIY 60GHz Radar sensor to solve the nasty motion-sensor problem

Nice progress here with the 24GHz sensor, if there where not the gov rules by EU and U.S., that would be my Motions sensor.

Is there an off the shelf mmwave sensor that I can just buy and integrate into HA? Anyone have a good amazon link for example? I donā€™t quite have the skills to build my own boards, but I would love to just buy one, and integrate it into ESPHome and HA. Iā€™m in the US

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Thank you for your answer. Iā€™m new to home assistant and arduino/esphome. But every free time i have i spend reading and tring. I canā€™t figure out where you enter these parameters from the first post? Also as i read in the wiki the sensor should work on 3.3v . Mine is now connected to 3v3. But i have error in the log.

13:08][D][text_sensor:067]: 'uart_readline': Sending state 'Error'
[20:13:10][D][text_sensor:067]: 'uart_readline': Sending state 'leapMMW:/>             '
[20:13:10][D][text_sensor:067]: 'uart_readline': Sending state 'leapMMW:/>[D][text_sensor:067]: 'uart_readline': Sending state 'leapMMW:'
[20:13:10][D][text_sensor:067]: 'uart_readline': Sending state '[D][text_sensor:067]: is not recognized as a CLI command'

I have just installed esphome and put your code with adjusted gpio values.

Any idea?

I see the following for supply voltage in the wiki:

  • Power Supply: 3.6~5V

I never tested it at 3.3V and would expect it to be unreliable outside the manufacturerā€™s specification.

As for troubleshooting - best to start a fresh post with the yaml you deployed, logs and steps taken to reproduce.

Finally it is workingā€¦ On 3v3 (i will test with 5 to see the difference) At least i see it in logs. But home assistant does not read it. I was using the same uart for the sensor and the logger.

Can you tell me how do you send the parameters?