Car Assistant

Keep track of your car remotely through Home Assistant

Sponsor

This project has been sponsored by PCBWay!

You can order this project from PCBWay at a $5 discount by using my referal link

Features

• Detailed user configuration (accessible by connecting to the ESP's hotspot and going to http://192.168.4.1)
• Advanced build configuration with verbose support (platformio.ini)
• OTA updates through a secure hotspot
• Cellular connectivity
• Automatically update the ESP's clock
• MQTT connection
• SD card support through an FTP server (set your connection mode to Active (PORT))
• Dynamic CPU frequency scaling
• Report battery status (percentage, voltage, USB charging, solar charging & discharging)
• Report network details
• Report location status (latitude, longitude, speed, altitude, visible satellites, accuracy) with cellular fallback
• Report the uptime of the ESP in seconds
• Report your car's temperature, humidity and air pressure using a BME280 sensor
• Report the light level inside your car using a TSL2561 sensor
• Detect motion inside your car's cabin using a PIR sensor
• Report the CPU temperature and frequency
• Report the free RAM amount
• Report the ESP32's hall sensor value
• Recover from GPS failures automatically
• Recover from cellular failures automatically
• Reboot the ESP32 & Modem remotely over MQTT

Software Requirements

• IDE of choise with PlatformIO (VSCode is recommended)
• USB <-> Serial driver (macOS | Linux | Windows)
• MQTT Broker
• Home Assistant server (optional. An example config can be found here)

Hardware Requirements

• LilyGO® TTGO T-SIM7600E-L1C ESP32 (Other ESP32 TTGO models could also work)
• A Nano SIM Card with an active internet plan
• Cellular antenna
• GPS antenna
• 18650B battery
• BME280 sensor (optional)
• TSL2561 sensor (optional)
• PIR sensor (like the AM312) thats pulled low by default (optional)
• Micro SD Card formatted as FAT32 (optional)

Connectors

• I2C1 - GPIO 21 & 22
• I2C2 - GPIO 21 & 22
• GPIO - GPIO 19 & 23

Estimated Battery Life

• With the hardware listed above & low power mode, I've been able to get 20 hours of battery life

Boards preview

Enclosures preview

More pictures can be found here

Configuration (Web UI)

Cellular

• APN - The APN URL of your cellular provider
• Username - The APN username of your cellular provider
• Password - The APN password of your cellular provider
• SIM PIN - The PIN of your SIM card (leave blank if you don't have one)

Clock

• Timezone - The UTC offset of your timezone (in seconds, e.g. UTC+2 = 7200)
• Daylight Saving Time - Enable or disable daylight saving time (will add 1 hour to the UTC offset)

WiFi AP

• SSID - The SSID of the WiFi AP that the ESP will create
• Password - The password of the WiFi AP that the ESP will create
• Disable when on battery or stationary - Will disable the AP when running on battery or when stationary for about ~15 minutes

MQTT Broker

• Address - The IP address / domain name of your MQTT broker
• Port - The port of your MQTT broker
• Client name - The name you want to give to the ESP on your MQTT broker
• Username - The username of your MQTT broker
• Password - The password of your MQTT broker

Location

• GNSS Mode - Constellations the modem should use (0 = GPS + GLONASS, 1 = GPS + BEIDOU, 2 = GPS + GALILEO, 3 = GPS + QZSS)
• DPO - Direct Platform Orientation (0 = Disable, 1 = Enable)

Sensors

• Enable - Enable or disable all the sensors

BME280

• Enable - Enable or disable the BME280 sensor
• I2C Address - The I2C address of the BME280 sensor (0x76 or 0x77)
• MQTT Temp - The MQTT topic to publish the temperature to
• MQTT Pressure - The MQTT topic to publish the pressure to
• MQTT Humidity - The MQTT topic to publish the humidity to

TSL2561

• Enable - Enable or disable the TSL2561 sensor
• I2C Address - The I2C address of the TSL2561 sensor (0x29, 0x39 or 0x49)
• Gain - The gain of the TSL2561 sensor (auto, 1x or 16x)
• MQTT - The MQTT topic to publish the light level to

PIR

• Enable - Enable or disable the PIR sensor
• GPIO - The GPIO pin the PIR sensor is connected to
• MQTT - The MQTT topic to publish the motion status to

CPU Temperature

• Enable - Enable or disable reporting the CPU temperature sensor value
• MQTT - The MQTT topic to publish the CPU temperature to

CPU Frequency

• Enable - Enable or disable reporting the CPU frequency value
• MQTT - The MQTT topic to publish the CPU frequency to

Free RAM

• Enable - Enable or disable reporting the free RAM value
• MQTT - The MQTT topic to publish the free RAM value to

Hall

• Enable - Enable or disable reporting the hall sensor value
• MQTT - The MQTT topic to publish the hall sensor value to

Modem MQTT topics

• Info - The MQTT topic to publish the modem info to
• CCID - The MQTT topic to publish the modem CCID to
• IMSI - The MQTT topic to publish the modem IMSI to
• Operator - The MQTT topic to publish the modem operator to
• Signal Quality - The MQTT topic to publish the modem signal quality to
• Public IP - The MQTT topic to publish the modem public IP to

Battery MQTT topics

• Percentage - The MQTT topic to publish the battery percentage to
• Voltage - The MQTT topic to publish the battery voltage to
• Status - The MQTT topic to publish the battery charging status to (charging, USB charging or discharging)

Location MQTT topics

• Type - The MQTT topic to publish the location type to (GPS or cellular)
• Latitude - The MQTT topic to publish the location latitude to
• Longitude - The MQTT topic to publish the location longitude to
• Speed - The MQTT topic to publish the location speed to
• Altitude - The MQTT topic to publish the location altitude to
• Accuracy - The MQTT topic to publish the location accuracy to

FTP

• Enable - Enable or disable the FTP server
• Username - The username of the FTP server
• Password - The password of the FTP server

Misc MQTT topics

• Uptime - The MQTT topic to publish the uptime to
• Version - The MQTT topic to publish the version number to

Power Saving

• Dynamic Frequency - Lower the CPU frequency to 160MHz when running on battery
• Low Power mode on battery - Lower the CPU frequency to 80MHz (instead of 160MHz) and turn GPS off when running on battery (only works if Dynamic Frequency is enabled)

Advanced Build Configuration (platformio.ini)

Debug

• DEBUG - Enable or disable debug messages

Modem config

• UART_BAUD - The baud rate of the serial port & modem
• MODEM_TX - The TX pin of the modem
• MODEM_RX - The RX pin of the modem
• MODEM_PWRKEY - The PWRKEY pin of the modem
• MODEM_DTR - The DTR pin of the modem
• MODEM_RI - The RI pin of the modem
• MODEM_FLIGHT - The flight mode pin of the modem
• MODEM_STATUS - The status pin of the modem

Status LED

• LED_PIN - The pin of the status LED

Indicator pins

• USB_INDICATOR - Detect if the board is being powered by USB
• SOLAR_INDICATOR - Detect if the board is being powered by solar

Modem model

• TINY_GSM_MODEM_<MODEL> - The model of the modem (only SIM7600 has been tested)

Credits

• Xinyuan-LilyGO - Basic T-SIM7600X implementation
• Random Nerd Tutorials - Base webserver code
• vshymanskyy - TinyGSM & StreamDebugger libraries
• knolleary - PubSubClient library
• adafruit - Unified Sensor, BME280 & TSL2561 libraries
• ayushsharma82 - ElegantOTA library
• mathieucarbou - AsyncTCP & ESPAsyncWebServer libraries
• bblanchon - ArduinoJson library
• peterus - ESP-FTP-Server library