Remote radio sensor

Hallo! Planning question. If one had a magnetic switch on an outside gate that was about 25 metres away from a house containing a photon, and one wanted to be able to “publish” any changes to the state of that switch to the photon in the house, what would be the best way to do it? Ideally without having an opposite Photon outside by the gate…?

Thanks

Wireless 433MHz door sensors can be had for a couple of dollars (<$3). Add a <$1 433MHz receiver to that, and you should be good to go.
Alternatively, an Arduino pro mini with a 2.4GHz transceiver on both ends.
Alternatively, stick a laser on the fence, aimed at a photosensor hooked to you Photon.

Yeah, plenty of ways to go about this, comes down to what you prefer to spend (money, or time).

Hi @Moors7, thanks for your answer. I’ve found a 433mhz receiver I like the look of, would I have to somehow decode the transmission with it to use it with a 433mhz receiver?

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Hi Dane,

There are some options mentioned in this thread:

Good luck!
Gustavo.

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@gusgonnet good Lord yes there are some fancy setups in that thread for distance…however I’m not looking to cover anything like a mile distance. More like 25m in my case (82 feet for Americans!)

Yes, when triggered, those will broadcast a signal. As such, you’ll need to figure out what that signal is. There are libraries available, so that shouldn’t be too hard. I got mine up and running within an hour.

there is a library ported for RF24 which you could use the very inexpensive NRF24 radio.

you could use it by the gate with an arduino pro mini and transmit to your Particle device

The last post mentions an ANAREN CC110, which I think transmits at 100 meters for $20

that looks very inexpensive and interesting! thanks

Hang abaaat - would bluz.io not be a contendor for one possible answer here?

I’m not quite sure the range of bluetooth would suffice for this application, though @eely22 should be able to elaborate on this :slight_smile:
That’d be a ‘DIY’ build though, whereas there are various already optimized and encased products out there that have the sensors you seek, and have the broadcasting figured out. It’s all about how much TLC you want to put in at this point :wink:

You can use these $13 dollar RFM69 radios.

image

https://lowpowerlab.com/shop/product/145

They have a lot of interesting low power setups for house jobs on that site.