I guess we’ll see how that part works in practice, but the quick & easy ability to turn the lights on/off was the main goal. Since I obviously have to go to the door to close the door and the remote is right there, it makes it a pretty easy system. (My son asked, “Why don’t you get just an ‘ON THE AIR’ sign?” To which I replied, “I looked, and if they had one that I could control with HomeKit, I would have bought one.") Possible Bonus: A Visible “Do Not Disturb” IndicatorĪs a bonus, the actual “Remote Control” part actually comes off the base (it attaches with magnets), so I’ve told my wife and son that if the door is closed and the remote control part is not on the base, it means that I’m in the middle of something and can’t be interrupted, barring emergency. I set the top 3 buttons to 3 different “scenes” and the bottom button is just “Off” so if my wife walks by the office and I’m not in there, she can just push the button and turn off the lights, and not have to ask “Are you done in the office?” which was my primary goal of this entire endeavor in the first place. I affixed it to the outside frame of the door (that is, so it’s visible when the door is closed). Then use that knowledge to dial in your setup. Continue those measurements in some sort of logical manner until you figure out your specific beacon’s “strong direction” and “weak direction”. Write that number down (or better yet, the average of ten figures), then change the orientation of the beacon. Try measuring the RSSI (using a free app such as LightBlue) of the beacon from 3 meters away using your phone. It’s different for each type of beacon due to different board/antenna layouts. This is due to the internal antenna being asymmetrically-oriented on the circuit board. I don’t think this will be needed though if you set TX to -40.Īnother point someone made is also true: the orientation of the beacon effects the signal strength is specific directions. Even a thick wood desk top can partially block signals. That should make the signal stay within the office space and not be readable from downstairs.Īs another user pointed out, you can use something metal and thick (not aluminum foil) below the beacon to partially block the signal as well. Some beacons have a wider TX range and can be set to -40 dBm. I have not played around with the power settings on the beacon because I want it to transmit to the greatest distance, so I have the power set to the maximum. However, I am thinking that you may be able to configure this beacon’s (or another) power to transmit only within the confines of your office as opposed to the room next door. I am a software developer, not a radio frequency expert, so I don’t know the details of how powerful these values are or what correlation they would have with the transmission distance. My point in posting is to say that the RadBeacon USB “Transmit Power” is configurable from 0dBm to -20dBm. Then I plug my phone into Apple CarPlay, it is all ready for me. When I choose an option, it plugs the address into maps and get directions for me. When I am in range of the beacon it triggers an action on my iPhone that checks my calendar for events and prompts me to choose where I am going next. I have this beacon plugged into a USB port in my truck, and when I unlock the doors of my truck, it is powered on. I have used a RadBeacon USB ( ) for something similar to this. I was playing around with the Estimote beacons. I do suspect that iBeacon quality is going to be key to the sort of single room control you’re talking about given the fine grained strength of signal needs. There I was able to pretty successfully get the iBeacon to trigger when and only when I approached or left my office. When I would walk in the area above the office on the first floor, the iBeacon would sometimes trigger and I couldn’t dial down the signal range enough to make it work only in the office space.Īt work, I had much more success – my office is on the top floor of a three story building and I virtually never go into the space directly below. At home, I had problems similar to what describes. I found that it was very dependent on office location and the configuration of the space around it. I did a little playing around with a similar automation idea with iBeacons after the Automators episode that made me spend money on them. In my experience, this is a very “it depends” situation.
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