Spark Photon - distance calc?

1

I’ve been looking at bluetooth beacon technology to use to program some gadgets around the home that activate when I (my smart phone) is near them.

Is there any way to use the Photons Access Point capabilities to “measure” how far away a Smart Phone is (MAC address) based on signal strength?

2

@Gizmo, I have also used the iBeacon for one of my project, I used the distance calculation method described here. I This calculation is used for below project. I am not sure about the Photon Access Point but if we get the RSSI then above calculation can be used to get approximate distance.

1 Like
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So its looking promising then.
I guess all we need to be able to do on the Photon is:

  1. Determine the base TxPower of a known MAC ID (smart phone) and store this somewhere. Spark Cloud :smile:
  2. Monitor the respective signal strengths of those MAC ID (smart phone)

This big question is will spark photon have libraries or hooks into getting access to the data you need for point 1 and 2 above?

Does anyone have an answer to that?

4

I recently checked with our engineers and the API for interacting with the photon in AP Mode is still “taking shape” so the answer is no, not yet. Check back in a few weeks? Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.

5

Thanks for checking.
Are they taking requests on features?

If so I would love to see if they can add the ability to detect proximity.
e.g. the Spark Photon to be able to detect a certain smart phone is close, medium or far.
I assume this could be done by the Spark if it can monitor the signal strength of a device identified by a certain MAC ID.

Krvarma has outlined how this can be done with RF signal strenghts, but you need to have a baseline level.

So as part of the setup for this the Spark would need to register the MAC ID of the smart phone when the smart phone has its wifi on and is right next to it. The Spark would need to remember the signal strength of the MAC ID when close as this is used in the calculation to monitor how far away it is.

I would really LOVE to see this feature as that would mean I no longer need to use bluetooth to do this for some future home projects I have lined up. I would rather use something that has all the goodies of Spark which means I can also do more :smile:
Of course this also mean I will be buying A LOT more Sparks :slight_smile: