Port the code to ESP32

[ivanvach]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Double your user base by porting the code to ESP32.

Describe the solution you'd like
Same great functionality to be available in ESP32 microcontroller. ESP32 has WiFi , BT classic and BLE. It is cheaper and more widely available. As the name of the product says it "room-assistant" it is needed at least one per room. The cost adds up and cheaper controller could be beneficial to users.

Describe alternatives you've considered
Raspberry Pi Zero W is current solution. Restriction apply on purchases and at the end you pay 2-3 times more than ESP32.

Additional context
Add any other context or screenshots about the feature request here.

[CobraDunn]

Strongly 2nd this request.

[smmason]

Oh my, this would be awesome!

[DTTerastar]

https://espresense.com/ attempts to be this. Let me know what I'm missing...

[corgan2222]

https://espresense.com/ attempts to be this. Let me know what I'm missing...

OMG thanks a lot!
As is started with room presence detection, this esp project was not around, and I'm so happy that you brought my attention to it!

For month room assistant is not working correct, because of the known Bluetooth problems of all raspberry and the cluster goes offline if one node is missing. I would say, it works 1 out of 10 times.

So I gave espresense a try, and I'm more than happy!

I use tree ESP32 to track my iPhone 10 and one Oneplus8 Android and have absolute zero problems! The detection range is outstanding, nearly 15 m around the corner from our house. And the best thing, it works every time with no downtime!
There is also no need for a special app running on the devices!

At first, it was a little tricky to find the right devices, but this has to be done only once.
Sadly the integration has no home-assistant auto discovery, so that I had to create my own sensors, but that's not a big deal.

So thanks again for pointing me to that project!

[DTTerastar]

If you know any math/python I'd love help on my attempts at trilateration using ESPresense: https://github.com/ESPresense/ad-espresense-ips

[davewongillies]

https://espresense.com/ attempts to be this. Let me know what I'm missing...

Sadly the integration has no home-assistant auto discovery, so that I had to create my own sensors, but that's not a big deal.

Seems like they just merged auto discovery into espresense ESPresense/ESPresense#16

[smmason]

https://espresense.com/ attempts to be this. Let me know what I'm missing...

Holy crap, this looks awesome. Thanks!
How did I miss this?

[CobraDunn]

@smmason - Don’t get too excited if you want to use an iPhone. It doesn’t work.

[corgan2222]

@smmason - Don’t get too excited if you want to use an iPhone. It doesn’t work.

for my iPhone X its working fine

But its true, that fiddling out the correct signal can be tricky.

[Scott8586]

@corgan2222 - but it can't distinguish between two of the same or similar model iPhone at the same os level, it's not a unique fingerprint. (based on observations of multiple idevices in my setup). It doesn't yet take the place of classicBluetooth interrogation.

[corgan2222]

@corgan2222 - but it can't distinguish between two of the same or similar model iPhone at the same os level, it's not a unique fingerprint. (based on observations of multiple idevices in my setup). It doesn't yet take the place of classicBluetooth interrogation.

As I only have one iPhone, I could not test this. God to know, thanks for the info.

[DTTerastar]

I just tested a new iphone, my ipad pro and for me everything get's different fingerprint. In fact they seem to be ordinally counted based on the iCloud join time. I don't know why it works for me and not everyone else...

[corgan2222]

@DTTerastar

What's about the room-assistant companion app? Maybe we can use it? For me the app worked completely fine for detection. (I only had the problems on the receiver side with the crappy raspberry BT stack)

room-assistant companion app for iOS

This app broadcasts BLE services for presence detection purposes. It allows room-assistant to detect your room presence even though the actually advertised address is randomized.

• https://apps.apple.com/de/app/room-assistant/id1538642237
• https://github.com/mKeRix/room-assistant-companion-ios

[DTTerastar]

I can see those broadcasts, making them into a fingerprint now.

[corgan2222]

awesome!!!!

[ivanvach]

Just tried it using iPhone 12 as a beacon without any specific BT apps.
Noticed that "distance" varies when I move iPhone around but it is by far not accurate.
Also I couldn't find any good documentation so I'm asking here
a) is there a good documentation of espresence ?
b) what are the meanings of the fields raw, speed, rssi@1m, rssi below
{"id":"apple:1006:10-7","rssi@1m":-59,"rssi":-75,"mac":"7ec32e9c6b6d","raw":2.87,"distance":3.13,"speed":-0.1}

I know that rssi is related to signal strength and I guess that distance is estimated buy rssi but it is so far off in my case. Is it possible to calibrate ?

[smmason]

@smmason - Don’t get too excited if you want to use an iPhone. It doesn’t work.

Yeah, you're not wrong.... My phone and my wife's phone have the same fingerprint, as do our watches. Not giving up on it yet.

[corgan2222]

I can confirm the problem with my iWatch. It's the same fingerprint as my iPhone. :/

[smmason]

In fairness to the author of Room-assistant (which I still quite like by the way, its limitations are more Pi problems) should we really discuss this over on the Espresense Github?

[DTTerastar]

https://github.com/ESPresense/ESPresense/releases/tag/v2.0.0 has added preliminary support for room assistant companion app!

[austwhite]

I've moved to using ESPresense, which is at 3.3.1 now and regularly updated.
Still would be nice if the Room Assistant guys were able to port this, but I have a feeling development on Room Assistant has very much slowed down. This can happen as people get busy with other things.....
Thanks to the developers for letting us have it so long though :)