Request Sensor Help, Driveway lightup [proximity] problem

[Altair8800]

Hi All,

I'm trying to get help/suggestions on best way to tackle a sensor/proximity/uniqueness project/problem.

What I want to do, in the end, is when when we drive either one of our cars close to the house that that the system will have a bunch of Leds light up on the side(s) of the driveway. 

I really would like to have it when the cars are >= ~2 to 30 meters (few feet to few yards) away from the beginning of the driveway when they will light up.  This will help when backing into the driveway (esp. in rain or snow or when dark outside).


Thought about...

PIR	Maybe last resort, worry being triggered too much by road traffic
"RFID"	"Passive too short, Active w/battery, receiver, antenna maybe too expensive?"
"IR (i.e., tripwire)"	"I don't own other side of driveway, maybe though)"
"Bluetooth"	"Worried about Bluetooth funkiness/pairing/connecting issues (maybe better now?)"
"ESP32"	"Have home base unit ping and if cars reply unique number then turn on lights for 10 minutes, but how determine when stop when cars stationary/parked"

Here is kind of the layout of our driveway/house/street.  I do have access to AC via the bottom socket on our lamppost (in red on diagram).



I'll appreciate if you guys could point me in possible solutions. I sort of need it where I can distinguish between our cars verses numerous other cars driving down the street.  It would be a nicety if LEDs could start lighting up a few feet before the cars pull into driveway...  Hoping to keep costs under $50 USD.  I did spend a bit of time researching this on EEVBlog BB but just couldn't find anything readily.

Lastly, since this is my first post...  Little about me. I'm trained as an MechE not an EE, but mostly did career-wise programming and databases...  Electronics is my hobby, and I actually have been a Youtube EEVBlog fan for a long long long time...  Cheers...

[Edit01:  only changed font size]

[jhpadjustable]

Welcome, from a new user to a newer user. You might want to turn that font size down just a hair...

The ESP8266 already does what you're thinking about, when it's acting as a password-protected access point. You could configure the base ESP8266 to turn the lights on and off in response to changes in the number of authed clients within range, without exchanging any IP traffic at all. You could build transponders with nothing but the WiFi connection programmed into them, or simply use your phone.

nRF24L01+ or clone modules are cheap and have very long range, so you will probably get very early triggering without a manual on/off switch in the cab(s), which isn't a bad feature in general. They have a 3.3V SPI interface plus an interrupt signal.

If you don't mind being courteous to strangers, there are also radar-based object detector modules, such as the first item I saw with trimpots in my search result.

[Altair8800]

Thanks jhpadjustable for the reply. 

I did a quicky look (to see what they are) but would do more research into them later tonight

When your new-ish to electronics like me you kind of don't know whats out there (or what they are called)...

Cheers  Altair8800 



PS:  I changed the font to regular.  Being little up there in age personally had little trouble reading standard BB font...     Should have did the CTRL+Mouse Wheel trick...  To change font size instead...