Interface to Wireless Driveway Sensor @raspberry_pi #piday #raspberrypi
Here’s a useful tutorial from The Raspberry Pi Hobbyist on making a home alarm system based on a Raspberry Pi.
I have a driveway that is over 300 feet long and it is nice to have some advance notice that someone is driving or walking in. Previously, I have used a very expensive IR beam-break detector. It gave a lot of false alarms and eventually failed due to a lightning strike. It also required that I run a very long cable that could survive outdoors, which added more expense. It’s time to switch to a wireless sensor.
I found this inexpensive one at Harbor Freight ($17 with coupon.) It is a simple, stand-alone alarm with a receiver that just flashes some LEDs and emits a tone. It claims to work up to 400 feet and I verified that it works to at least 350 feet, which is good enough for my application. I created the circuit described below to interface this to my Raspberry Pi based home alarm system.
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Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!