Next school year, my son will be left home after school for a few hours while my wife and I are at work. I’m looking for a way to detect when he’s home and have the front door unlock (among other automation scripts that are in place).
I came across this post and was going to get the Tile Pro as it seemed to check off all my requirements:
- I could put it in his backpack where it can be forgotten.
- long battery life.
- Through the Home Assistant integration, it can trigger when it gets in range.
- It also has a few other beneficial things, so I was thinking of putting one on each of our bicycles in case they’re ever stolen. Hell, I could look into putting one on my cat’s collar in case she ever gets out.
Then I came across some concerning articles regarding data harvesting. The whole reason I started self-hosting was to prevent data harvesting, so it seems like the Tile is a non-starter for me.
Has anyone been in this (or a similar) situation? Mainly, I’m looking for a device I can put in my son’s backpack that can trigger when he’s within range, so the house will open for him. BLE seems like it might be a solution, though I run my server on an old Dell r720 enterprise server in my basement, so I don’t currently have Bluetooth functionality (and it’s pretty far away from the front door, 20+ feet), though getting that is not a dealbreaker for me.
- Addendum: To people saying just get a key: we have a key for him. I have a monolith sized server in my basement that automates most everything in my house these days, and was curious if anyone had set up something similar to what I was thinking. Home automation is very much a hobby, and I’m using it to learn new things.
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Get a key
A logical solution. My guess is this kid has lost keys before. OP wants a way the kid doesn’t need to be responsible.
Fasten the key to the inside of the backpack in a way that doesn’t come off. Kid is going to have their backpack.
Kids lose stuff like keys. Adults lose companies, their minds, and other such things. Leave the kids alone
Definitely make sure you think through all the physical security implications of having your house automatically unlock in any scenario.
Have the house auto unlock when getting home on a bicycle, sounds convenient until, as you point out, they could get stolen and now the thief has a convenient way to unlock your house. So you would not want that.
You would definitely not want the house to STAY unlocked when something like a tag is in range. If your kid is home alone, you want them to be able to re-lock the house (or in general, you want to be able to lock your house while the kid is home).
Whatever solution you wind up with, you are going to be trading physical security for ease of use (and complicated fun task). Be safe. Make sure the tradeoffs are actually thought through and worth it.
Very good point that I hadn’t given though to. Thanks!
Or you know, he’s gonna brag to friends who are gonna talk about it and backpack is now key (that a lot of people know about) to a house probably filled with expensive gadgets.
Security wise, while I love automating everything, I personally would just give them a physical key to the front door. (Or an RFID keyfob system).
What you’d be achieving is the equivalent of keyless car entry, with the additional downside that your son can’t choose not to open the door if something sketchy happens.
And instead of entrusting them with a traditional key that they can treat responsibly, you’re just putting something in their backpack that they don’t have to think about.If you really want to do it, basically anything in homeassistant that has wireless capability and a state would probably work.
A zigbee radio, and pretty much any device doing anything would do it.
When device_name becomes available, activate door opening.So they are old enough to be home alone, but not have phone access in their home? What’s the plan for if they need to call out of the house? Go somewhere else and borrow a rando’s phone?
We have a “landline” (3rd cell phone). He’ll be going into 5th grade (age 10 for non-Americans). He’s not allowed to have a cell phone at school. I also don’t want it lost. This will be for an hour or so before my wife gets home.
It’s possible that the school would allow him to drop off a phone in the front office every morning and pick it up before walking home. Depends how nice you are to the office ladies, but that’s always a good idea anyway because they’re more powerful than you can imagine. (Some school office staff may not be ladies these days but the principle still applies, and in elementary school most probably still are.)
I assume there is a land line in the house, some people still have those.
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Sterling contribution there, bud.
Don’t be a dick, mate. Engage just a little bit of critical thinking before calling people names like that.
By law where I am, our kids aren’t allowed to have their phones at school. My daughter’s school’s policy, then, is that phones are left at the school office.
We want to give our soon-to-be 10yo daughter her first phone later this year (times with a planned family trip, so it can be her new camera as well). But if she takes it to school and has to leave it at the office, I can guarantee she’ll absolutely forget on more than one occasion to pick it up before coming home.
So, her phone will have to stay home. But we’re also getting to the point where she can be trusted to let herself in and wait for one of us to get home (like OP, maybe an hour or so). So a presence detection option can’t be based on whether the phone has moved into the geo zone in HA.
This is a legitimate question for modern parents. Denigrating OP without knowing or understanding all the facts certainly does shine a light on ignorance at play here. Just not OP’s ignorance.
Either an ESP32 BLE proxy via MQTT with a Tile-like beacon in the backpack, or a cipher lock with a Kid Code are probably the most straightforward solutions.
If you have Frigate NVR set up, there’s a project called Double Take that does facial recognition. Looks like a bit of work and needs training, but it could be a fun project.
Best answer here. No data harvesting.
I do run Frigate! I’ll have to check that out. I actually found a project for Frigate that identifies birds. It’s an incredibly powerful program.
Are you comfortable with flashing microcontrollers? https://esphome.io/components/bluetooth_proxy.html might be a solution to your BLE beacon idea. buy any esp32 board for like 5$, put it somewhere in your living room or wherever makes sense and have it proxy BLE scans to HomeAssistant.
While I’ve never messed with an esp board, it’s something I was planning on learning in order to create a few other things, so this might be the best time to start.
Would you still use the tile at that point?
If you really just want to know if the kid (or better, the ble tag) is at home, then no - I’d probably use any other ble beacon (iBeacons are cheap on Ali)
Afaik, Tile tags work somewhat like AirTags and are trackable wherever they are. If you want/need more precise location information then I’d stick to Tile.
Maybe you can go a bit lower tech. There are “smart” door locks with a keypad that have Bluetooth, but are not otherwise cloud enabled. Then find a small device you can use as a Bluetooth proxy and position it near the front door, to keep tabs on it. Our lock is from Kwikset, and while there is an app to program it, once it is programmed it is pretty much stand-alone and won’t need the app anymore.
The lock does have Home Assistant integration but I haven’t tried it yet because I haven’t done the Bluetooth Proxy yet.
Yeah, I have an August lock right now. That one is nice because I can keep the out-facing lock the same, so people like my father-in-law don’t get flustered. Ultimately, I’m trying to solve this in the most complicated way possible for me. I could just give him a key, but where’s the fun in that?
What you mentioned with the proxy is probably the way I’ll have to go.
This lock has a keypad, so the kid just needs to remember that. It has a key also, but if the kid never has the key, they can never lose it.
Does your August lock allow multiple codes? I’ve got a Quickset keypad deadbolt that does, and that allowed me to set a code I gave my neighbor, and the lock reports which code was used. If yours does something similar, you can give kiddo a separate code, then when that code gets used after school, the house does the needful. No key to lose or tag to track that way.
I got the Eufy S330 doorbell/keypad lock. The kids have their own pin and can lock/unlock without a key. I get notifications when they use it and can remotely lock/unlock via my phone. It’s been fantastic for us.
I’ve been thinking about exactly the same problem.
We want to give our near-10yo daughter her first phone, but she’s not allowed to have it at school. She’s also getting to the point where she can be trusted at home for an hour or so before one of us gets home from work, so I also need a presence detection method that doesn’t use a mobile phone.
My best theoretical solutions are like those already suggested here: an ESP32 BT proxy detecting a homebrew BLE beacon in her school bag, or detect activity on her iPad/the TV. But neither of those are reliable for all scenarios - she obviously doesn’t take her school bag to her friend’s house, and doesn’t always use her iPad or the TV.
The only other thing I’m pondering is if I could setup facial recognition using our video doorbell. I use Frigate with a Coral TPU, so hoping there’s a project out there that could possibly do that.
Yeah. Sounds like diving in to an espboard is the way to go. Guess now is as good of a time to learn as any other!
I use an ESP32 board as a wifi-based proxy for the BT temp sensors on my barbecue. Works a treat! It’s doable in esphome, so easily plugs into HA.
Details here: https://esphome.io/components/sensor/inkbird_ibsth1_mini.html
Honestly I’d just go low-ish tech and give them a key, or install a lock with a keypad and teach them a number. The security problems with automatic smart locks are too big, in my opinion.
Have you considered an implantable NFC chip in his hand?
Gotta love techno maniacs, suggesting implanting a microchip on your child is somehow a reasonable suggestion. Have people heard of keys? buttons? hell, even Bluetooth tags?
If the kid is old enough to stay at home alone for a few hours, they’re probably old enough to have and operate a key and push a couple of buttons on a touchscreen or tablet.
No, you see. One of the requisites of jokes is that they have to be funny. Because I assure you, OC isn’t joking.
Well i chuckled
Me 2.
Unless you put the reader in the doorknob, that’s not going to do you any good. The range on those things is a fucking disgrace.
Maybe go with a longer range RFID and implant it somewhere visible so there’s less signal attention from clothes and such.
Yeah, and ideally you would want it up high as well. Maybe like a hat or in the forehead.
Yeah that would be ideal. Only concern is if there would be enough skin to cover it.
Latchkey kids of the 21century have it worse than the originals, parents not there for them but now they’re also helicopter parents spying on them and controlling their actions remotely. I guess we should call them drone parents.
Just get an Apple Airtag and have him carry it around in his pocket (just make sure he doesn’t leave in there it so it doesn’t accidentally get washed). If you need to see if he’s at home just check it’s location with your phone. Place it on a keyring with a house key.
But to automate the front door unlocking, it needs to be detectable from HA. Which I believe is possible, but requires a macOS machine to extract the necessary rolling code key information.
Perhaps don’t do it directly. But have the system assume he is home based on various things. Motion sensors, media playing, lights on or changing states. Things like that.
Hard to unlock the house based on media playing if the kid is outside though.
A fitness band will have low power Bluetooth you can detect. You can get a miband for $20-30. You can detect it with one or two $5 esp32 boards running espresense.
What I’ve done is wired a different type of USB port to each door where the doorknob would exist. My kids and spouse all carry a different thumb drive for each door with the proper conversion adapter permanently attached so they know which door it belongs to. Each family member only uses the door for which they have the “key”. My wife prefers the back door. The USB port solution helps to deny access to certain rooms inside the house too as I’ve wired ports on those doors too. For instance I have a room where I keep the liquor that I can block the kids from accessing.
Each port is connected to a different RPI5 that runs software that upon a device insert reads a special file named for the date. Inside that file is the name of the family member so the script knows who it is. It then updates a spreadsheet hosted in Google Cloud so I can view it from anywhere. Google sends me push notifitations when this happens.
The beauty is that if one of my family loses their thumb drive I just make another and rotate the adapters so the old one won’t work anymore. My wife is the biggest culprit of this. She doesn’t work and is home all day but she still has a pretty busy life based on all the action that back door sees. But it has lead to a bug - more on that later.
It’s a pretty flawless solution - I’m so proud of it I’ve given my tech savvy neighbor a thumb drive of his own to help test the system. Like I mentioned I have one bug to fix tho.
It seems like every time my wife loses her thumb drive there is some ghosting in the logs. For instance, I’ll see a push notification with her name and a the back door opening and then a few minutes later another rear entry with her name attached but never an exit between events. Maybe an hour later then I’ll see an exit.
My neighbor always seems to do his testing while I’m at work too cuz I’ll see his name show up. My wife has mentioned he’ll stop by for a half hour or hour a couple times a week and answer questions about the system and tech. I think she wants to get a job in tech.
Another bug I’ve only seen happen a few times is the back door opening with my wife’s thumb key, the neighbor entering the back door, and then my wife’s name showing another back door event. I’ve called her on the phone to have her (and the neighbor if he’s there) troubleshoot during this and she is definitely home but she sounds really hurried and out of breath. I don’t know what she is watching on TV but it sounds like several guys arguing and when I ask why it’s so loud she gets worked up and has to mute the phone for a bit.
Actually now that I think about it I’ve started getting notifications of back door entries after my wife has gone to bed and I’m working on projects in the basement. It’s soundproofed down there so I can listen to music without waking her. I swear tho I’ll hear some off-timed thumping after these events.
But yeah, I really like the tech I got going on and my wife thinks it’s the best idea I’ve had. I think for v2 I’d like to implement a secret knock each family member has instead of the thumb drive so there’s nothing to lose. It would be much easier for my wife’s back door entry. I swear she squealed with delight when I told her how much time would be saved on entry just by a few properly timed forceful hits to a sensor on the back door. She wanted to try it out immediately!
Good luck!
Well written
