ESPectre
Infrastructure
home automation sensing
SHOW HN2025
215points
50comments
#286of 3,837 in 2025
Top 8%of 2025 by points
How HN took it
CuriousMostly questions and neutral comments
3 positive, 18 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 0 critical, out of 21 comments about the project. Thread score +0.09.
Idea: 3 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Interesting, cheap open-source approach to presence sensing.
From 3 comments
Amazing stuff! Am I right in understanding that only a single ESP32 device is needed (plus a router)?
tetris11 on HNInteresting! Are you familiar with tommysense.com? I think it doing something similar? Did not yet have time to try it.
Gys on HNUsing two ESP32-S3 modules you can get ~6000 packets per second with CSI data. I'm using this as a cheap replacement for specialty high-G gyroscope modules, but it could see use…
TGower on HN
Objections
Single sensor likely insufficient for large areas like 100 m² apartments.
From 1 comment
It really depends on the environment: wall materials, interference, signal strength, and even temperature and humidity all play a role. Honestly, 100 m² is probably too large for…
francescopace on HN
Mesh routers may cause ESP32 to roam and monitor the wrong space.
From 1 comment
In terms of layout of rooms and useful monitoring, you have to be able to configure which node it attaches to, right? Because it's going to monitor the physical space between…
acl on HN
Requests
Ability to ignore pets such as cats.
From 1 comment
I see you have done a fair amount of work to document calibration for various scenarios. Have you tried to calibrate to ignore cats? Can you prioritize different algorithms to…
sgc on HN
Questions
Whether one sensor covers multiple rooms or a whole apartment.
From 2 comments
Probably one per room because all the examples at https://github.com/francescopace/espectre/blob/main/CALIBRATION.md are about a single room. Is the author reads this, how does…
pmontra on HNHow about if I want to monitor the apartment as a whole? Would 100m2 be too much for one sensor to handle?
yoavm on HN
Whether it works with mesh routers.
From 1 comment
Would this work with a mesh router?
acl on HN
Alternatives named
Tommysense
From 1 comment
Interesting! Are you familiar with tommysense.com? I think it doing something similar? Did not yet have time to try it.
Gys on HN
Bermuda BLE trilateration
From 1 comment
It's neat that Tommysense works on top of esphome... I'm currently using Bermuda BLE trilateration, but it doesn't quite work, especially in a multy-story living space (e.g. a…
vsviridov on HN