Looking to detect phones via bluetooth

Hi all

Has anyone seen an industrial whatever???? device to detect phones via bluetooth? We want to initiate something on the plc when one of our phones are in the area? there are three in our area and want to know if 1,2 or all three are here?

Would also be happy with suggestions using some kind of tag we can add to our keyring etc.

https://landginternational.net/solutions/mobile-phone-detection/

what are you trying to accomplish?

Unlocking HMI Screens?
Making Sure maintenance is making their rounds?

This one has a serial interface
https://landginternational.net/products/transithound-operator-distraction-mobile-phone-detector/

Just how many of the team are on site. We only need to detect 3 in total

Is Bluetooth necessary ?

Does it need to detect any three mobile phones or three specific mobile phones ?

If the phones connect automatically to a WiFi access point, detection of which phones are at the location is a standard features of HomeAssistant.


There's a Node-Red library that uses the Bluetooth name lookup, but you need to know the MAC ID of each phone.

By coincidence I was configuring a new SD card on a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ with a fresh installation of the newly-released v1.1 of Node-Red.

Google brought me this:

https://flows.nodered.org/flow/13698a08ecf5ee5e1903b040c41a601b

I pasted that code into a Node-Red flow, added the Bluetooth MAC ID of my phone, and... it just works. It takes 5 to 6 seconds for hcitool to return the verdict on whether the specified MAC ID is present, and it simply returns a 1 or 0.

The phone doesn't have to be paired with the Raspberry Pi, nor does it have to be set to be discoverable on Bluetooth. BT does need to be on, of course.

What PLC type are you using ? Node-Red has ControlLogix tag access as well as Modbus/TCP.

Hi Ken. Yes I use HA at home and bluetooth. Yes its 3 phones in particular. I would be happy with a key fob or something. Juts need to detect those 3 people or anyone of them on site without having to go and log in.

Node-Red is extremely easy to install on a SBC like Raspberry Pi, and the program linked above is literally four function blocks. That's how I would do it.

You can easily resolve the device name; my phone returns the string "moto g(6)".

Bluetooth Low Energy devices can probably be made to work in a similar fashion.

This device can scan and detect wifii and bluetooth phones
http://www.libelium.com/products/meshlium/smartphone-detection/