Being a maker...
Added 2024-03-22 21:06:11 +0000 UTCRight lovely people - you get my Friday night rambles as I finished my smart controller and it's working awesomely.
Ultrasonic sensor hooked to an ESP chip that's connected to my home automation hub that controls the whole house!
In short I can use the distance sensor to adjust lighting levels, music levels, fan speed in my PC, height of my garage doors, level of my bath water, temperature of the room - it's basically endless, so I'm likely to be building a few of these around the house now that the hard work has been done!
I'll be posting a proper video on this in the coming weeks and as always, I'm more than happy to share plans/details/code with any of you if interested!
I thought I'd drop in some of my Friday night musings, so excuse my rambling - but I do sometimes get a bit in awe of the wonderful community of folks that I lean on every day to build things, it's so awesome what you can do!!
Have a great weekend in the meantime and if you do nothing else... make sure you make something.... :)
Katie
Comments
My cheap £5 claims a accuracy of 1mm. I've not properly tested it but it seems reasonable. I'm sure better sensors are more accurate and reliable. I probably wouldn't use the one I got in your use case. But it's probably a good start to play with
Simon
2024-05-19 11:57:10 +0000 UTCYes, that makes sense! How accurate can you get them? I've been pondering making an automatic tape measure for my chop saw, so a laser would be an easy way to approach this....! 🥸
Hands on Katie
2024-05-19 11:53:16 +0000 UTCI have mmwave sensors too, and they are great for general presence. The advantage of the laser, apart from price, is the precision. I can control to the mm when I want something to trigger. My bedroom has a corridor outside so I only want my lights to turn on when I step through the door. I probably could do that with a mmwave sensors now. But it's still cheaper and easier with a laser. For that specific case.
Simon
2024-05-19 11:46:03 +0000 UTCGreat idea! Although I'd use mmWave sensors to do this now and also detect presence and more! I'd like to test how accurate I can get a laser to be - there could be some awesome use cases for my workshop..........!
Hands on Katie
2024-05-19 11:40:28 +0000 UTCI originally was planning to use them as break beam sensors for entry into rooms. But then I used them as a distance sensor so I could tell if I was entering or leaving a room
Simon
2024-05-19 11:36:02 +0000 UTCHey Simon! Great thought! I'll need to have a play at some point with some lasers - I've got a few project ideas that could be a perfect excuse....!!!
Hands on Katie
2024-05-19 11:31:14 +0000 UTCI use laser time of flight sensors for a similar thing. It's advantage and disadvantage is its much more directional.
Simon
2024-05-19 11:29:02 +0000 UTC
