Replacing ESPresence with ESP32 Home for Room Presencing and Distance

[thisisbenwoo]

Hi Everyone,

Thank you in advance for any suggestions and help. If my question is out of place of this discussion board, please be kind, and advise where I should be asking my question. I'm not necessarily looking for someone to do this job for me, although as much help as I get is appreciated. Mostly, I want to learn and understand, and if I can get the basic direction, I'd take it from there, and figure out the rest.

I am using ESPresence. It's fine, it works. But for a number of personal opinions/reasons, I'd prefer to try and use ESPHome. For one, it is owned by Nabu Casa, so I expect integration with Home Assistant to be the best, and with the number of devices it already supports, I'm going to have a ball using more and more ESP32 devices to do different things. But I'm not there yet.

So, here's what I'm trying to solve:

• To begin learning about ESPHome I want to simply start by emulating what ESPresence is doing - specifically, room presencing and distance detection.
• I have read most of the documentation on the ESP32 Home page, but it's just a little too scattered for me to understand (I'll get to why in a second).
• I have 5 ESP32 devices distributed around my apartment.
• I have a bunch of Tile trackers, and 3 Android devices all with the Home Assistant app on them - I would like to keep the BLE transmission on my mobile phones on Ultra low transmission to conserve battery.

Basically, I'd like some guidance on (a) which of the ESPHome components I need to do presencing and distance tracking and what order (if that's the right question) to implement them. I have already successfully flashed my ESP32's in the past, but that's as far as I've gotten!

Is there a tutorial on how to do room presencing (and distance tracking)?
If there isn't, can someone advise me the order in which I should implement the various components of ESP32. I have at least concluded that I need to implement one (likely more) of the following, but which should I do first (assuming that there is an order):

• BLE Client Sensor
• BLE RSSI
• ESP32 BLE Presence (which seems to me to be logical to start with)
• BLE Binary Sensor
• BLE Scanner
• ESP32 Tracker
• ESP32 BLE Tracker Hub (I know this one I'll need somewhere along the way)

From reading the documentation, a number of the components above seem to overlap, hence my confusing. Also, which (if any, assuming it can be done), do I use for distance? My final question is which of these components (or another), can I use to find out the distance away from an ESP32 my phone or whatever tracked device is.

Reason for my question, and my willingness to write a tutorial:

• I suffer from severe ADD. For ADD/ADHD sufferers, one of the most basic coping mechanisms is to remove as many distractions as possible.
• (Successful) automations and technology can help DRAMATICALLY.
• Despite living alone in a small apartment (400 sqft), my entire apartment is fully automated.
• They're simple automations such as motion detection to turn lights on/off. Dimming lights after bedtime, so that if I or a guest staying with me needs to use the bathroom, no one gets blinded when they turn on the light in the middle of the night.
• Through energy consumption plugs, I get advised when the washing machine or dryer is done, and it will annoyingly remind me every 30 minutes through an announcement across multiple Amazon Echos (unless it's late in the night) until I do something about it, and then manually click the turn off annoying reminder (not because I'm lazy, but because, especially as my condition is actually considered severe, I can have the intention of unloading the washing machine, but by the time I get up off my chair, I've already moved onto something else because I got distracted, and washed clothes will stay in the washer for days!)
• The same principle for my oven (which is electric). If I leave the apartment, currently using the Home Assistant app as a tracker, and I forgot to turn off the oven (which is tracked by energy consumption, I get (an annoying) alert on my phone to remotely turn it off.
• Right now, with ESPresence, I can actually be advised if I leave home without my keys (a regular occurence), as I have a spare set that are available in a nearby lock box.
• Same with my wallet - can't drive a car (at least I shouldn't drive), without my license.
• As for distancing, you will not believe the number of times I've left my phone in the fridge, or under a pile of paperwork, in a jacket that I've (diligently) put back in my hallway closet, or left it in the bag I was carrying because I got distracted by the piece of mail I received, and (this one is not just an ADD sufferer's dilemma), it's fallen between the cushions of the couch! Using technology reduces (for distancing, it doesn't remove), the distraction of having to figure out where I left the phone, so one can get back to what one needs to focus on.

The list goes on and on. ADD/ADHD is a medical condition, one with no cure, but one that can be controlled. Like many other medical conditions, one does not choose to have it. It's also not a function of dumb luck or stupid behavior (for example if you ski too fast, or a novice skier slides right into you). Technology can help sufferers with safety (eg. my oven example aboe), and it helps sufferers to focus on the necessities of life - work, family, relationships etc. The bottom line, anything that takes away any distractions is the most basic form of coping mechanism.

Thanks for reading through my novel here, and my PSA on ADD/ADHD. Ultimately, my intent is not only to figure out how to do this for myself, but to contribute to forums for other sufferers of ADD/ADHD who struggle (and many sufferers do) with situations like this, and allow them to use very inexpensive technology and hopefully a lot of fun, to cope with, and control their situations.

B