3 cars, 2 spots, sensors and twitter

[nullArray]

So my roommates and live in a duplex. There are two spots reserved for our cars, but there are three of us with vehicles.

Since the parking is in an alley, we can't tell if there the two spots are full or not unless we actually go back there. I was wondering how complicated it'd be to build a twittering sensor that would notify when a car leaves, a car parks and which spots are available.

Criteria:

• Weatherproof - it's going to be outside ya know
• Efficient - it'd have to be battery operated, it should be able to tell us when it's low on power or have some notification system
• Wifi - in order to message us, it would need wireless to connect to our router (WPA is not required though)

Any ideas on where to begin? It's an interesting project for sure.

[psydT0ne]

we talking infra red sensors here?

sounds like a nice project.

[nullArray]

we talking infra red sensors here?

sounds like a nice project.

I have no idea. I'm not a hardware buff, so I wouldn't even know where to begin. I'm thinking it might almost be easier to set up a wireless camera that we can view on the go. We all have smartphones with fancy web browsers, so it shouldn't be so hard.

[gEEEk]

A camera hooked up to your network via WLAN, with some software on a computer that can detect movement. And then point it only at the car spot, and when the camera detects movement it responds with two possible modes.

• A car leaving - Empty parking spot
• A car parking - Occupied parking spot

Cool project! :)

/ gEEEk

[g-ram]

You sir, just gave me an idea for a project. Thank you.