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Ultra-wideband radios track which bins are ready for collection

sjg.io 15 min read Editor score 6/10

The project equips six household bins with radios and connects their status to Home Assistant after Bluetooth tags proved unreliable. It is a detailed personal automation project with some practical lessons about proximity sensing and battery life.

What

BinRange combines a fixed UWB radio anchor, six battery tags, and Home Assistant to track whether bins have been moved and are due for collection.

How

UWB estimates distance from radio travel time, unlike Bluetooth RSSI, which is affected by walls, reflections, orientation, and other factors.

Why it matters

For sensor-system design, the example shows how RSSI can confound distance with environmental effects while UWB measures signal travel time.

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