Hi I was hoping someone could point me as to what to do next in my HA/Bermuda setup.
My goal is for Bermuda to recognise the presence of a BLE beacon in the form of this when it is near my electric driveway gate so that it triggers a routine that open the gate.
I have set up an ESP32 as a bluetooth proxy that I was going to mount adjacent to the gate. I have also set up two beacons (Angela’s Car and Chris’ Car) to install in family members cars. Home assistant can see these under Bluetooth network visualisation as below
Both beacons are being reported firstly as “At Home” and then several minutes later as “Away”.
I am not sure what I need to do in the setup to be accurately detect their presence and from that, link a routine that operates the gate. I am wondering now if a single proxy is not enough and I need more than one proxy to achieve this?
At the moment a beacon in the same location as the proxy is showing as 1.2 to 1.7m away which is roughly correct but I think I need to calibrate this? Do I need to set a distance of more than say 10m away as being “Away” and anything les “at Home” If so where do I adjust this in Bermuda or in ESP32 Home?
Also is there a setting which adjust the beacon interval or is this hard coded into the BLE beacon. If the latter is 2 minutes sufficiently short for what I am trying to achieve? In my gut I feel it needs to be much sooner?
Many thanks
You actually may be over-complicating it using Bermuda. Bermuda is really meant for locating your beacon to a specific Area within a space with multiple detectors. If your beacon is sending an iBeacon compatible signal, you may want to use the iBeacon integration for simple Home/Away device tracking.
If it’s roughly correct I wouldn’t change the calibration in the Bermuda device unless you change the transmission power on the actual beacon.
That will depend on the beacon being used. Many manufacturers have apps available for Android/iOS that allow you to change some functions. Most of the BLE beacons I’ve played around with usually come from the factory with an interval that’s less than 1 minute.
If it’s an option, you should set it to be as short as the longest time you (or the car owners) want to wait at the gate. Just keep in mind that decreasing interval and/or increasing transmission power will decrease battery life.
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Many thanks @Didgeridrew . I wasnt aware of the iBeacon integration. Ill take a look at that. Thank you for the tips though. Its still a steep learning curve for me 
I am using this guy Amazon.com: Blue Charm Beacons - Bluetooth BLE iBeacon (BC021-MultiBeacon) with Movement Sensor - Long Range BLE 5.0 : Electronics
to detect when one of our trucks pulls into the driveway to open the garage door. The only issue I have with it is that sometimes it’ll be detected 100ft away other times it won’t be detected at all.
If you can get your bluetooth detection to be reliable I would love to hear about it!
OK so I have installed iBeacon Tracker integration and think I am nearly there but need help configuring “Home” and “Away” and how to use these to trigger an automation that will open the gate.
I’ve got an esp32 flashed to be a bluetooth proxy ESP32-Gate and two BLE tokens Chris’s Car and Angela’s Car these can both be seen in the bluetooth map. (Although Angela’s Car doesn’t show as an iBeacon?)
Both BLE beacons are configured
and settings are configurable
and active
As presence is determined by RSSI strength is this used or is it estimated distance? Where in BLE Tracker or the iBeacon device(s) do I configure a numeric number to dictate Home (less than??) and Away (more than?)
If I select Add automation from Chris’s car iBeacon I get the following
Is this where I enter a distance in the below field?? Should I enter a time period? Should I also add a condition? with the iBeacon approximately 3m from the BT proxy the distance shown is 7.00m what is a safe figure to enter?
Many thanks
