A Guard Bot For Your Home Assistant

While fixed sensors, relays, and cameras can be helpful in monitoring your home, there are still common scenarios you need to physically go and check something. Unfortunately, this is often the case when you’re away from home. To address this challenge, [PriceLessToolkit] created a guardian bot that can be controlled through Home Assistant.

The robot’s body is made from 3D printed components designed to house the various modules neatly. The ESP32 camera module provides WiFi and video capabilities, while the Arduino Pro Mini serves as the bot’s controller. Other peripherals include a light and radar sensor, an LED ring for status display, and a speaker for issuing warnings to potential intruders. The motor controllers are salvaged from two 9-gram servos. The onboard LiPo battery can be charged wirelessly with an integrated charging coil and controller by driving the bot onto a 3D printed dock.

This build is impressive in its design and execution, especially considering how messy it can get when multiple discrete modules are wired together. The rotating caster wheels made from bearings add an elegant touch.

If you’re interested in building your own guard bot, you can find the software, CAD models, and schematics on GitHub. If you’re looking to add other gadgets to your Home Assistant setup, we’ve seen it connect to boilers, blinds, beds and 433 MHz sensors.

Thanks for the tip [Bernard]!

31 thoughts on “A Guard Bot For Your Home Assistant

    1. So you want a battery compartment designed like an iron maiden, with a large pouch cell that just sits between the tips of the spikes… and coat the exterior with something REALLY sticky.

      1. I’d rather go for an NiMH battery pack, that can’t burn the house down. Defend against intruders with stickiness, two spring-driven spikes and an onboard high voltage generator instead. I doubt this thing with that sort of wheel can run on carpet, only on solid flooring, so if the high voltage shocks missed an intruders leg and arced they wouldn’t ignite anything.

        In short, If anything is going to run autonomously or remote controlled in a house which I’m not in, its not having lithium cells.

        1. Yah, the M.A.D. aspect isn’t gonna work out unless the intruder is 100% rational and has read the warning signs.

          Probably something more demonstrative like flashy sparks is more deterrent.

          I have been trying to figure out how to get painfully loud bleepers out of old smoke alarms without turning into a radioactive boyscout.

        2. I see your point, but Roombas (and probably other robot vacuums) have had lithium cells for a decade now. I used NiMH AA and C cells all around my house… the only bad experience I’ve had with them was trying to rebuild an older Roomba pack. *everything* about the charging on that old Roomba sucked. When they changed to Li-ion I sucked it up (hah!) and bought a new Roomba, keeping the old one for spares. The lithium battery in the new Roomba has been good for about 8 years now, and it has been useful to have spare parts as dust plus plastic bearings have led to some wear over those years.

      2. A few solenoids with spikes at the end, and a radar module. The device can then detect anything that’s coming to it above a certain speed, and shoot the spikes out just one or two microseconds before it’s going to be hit. Some tweaking necessary, success guaranteed. :)

        Just avoid it at all costs when you just woke up in the morning and didn’t have any coffee yet. :P

    2. I’m thinking it should be fairly trivial to wire a small CS gas canister into the housing, to be triggered on that exact occasion. I’m not sure what the legal situation around that would be, but it has to be better than with any modification that involves firearms. Add some UV dye packs to the exterior in the style of reactive armor, maybe a smoke bomb (potassium nitrate and sugar) to really confuse the invader, and you’ve got yourself something probably pretty effective. Less “mobile gun turret”, more “mobile tear gas mine”.

      Just be very sure not to have it running around while you’re home, as it would definitely suck to stumble over in the middle of the night on a bathroom trip.

      1. There used to be a brand that was used in 2stroke racing, it smelled so nice. Haven’t smelled that smell in years. I did experiment with one oil which was awesome, made my bike smell like strawberries. Another trick is to add a few drops of used deep fry oil to the tank, to make everyone around you go hungry as the bike will smell like french fries.

  1. This is fantastic and a much better (due to privacy) option over Amazon’s Astro that performs similar tasks. Good to see work on alternatives that’s not confined in half baked, and multiple for some reason, apps. Patrolling the home while away is the feature that convinced me to buy Astro, but its size makes it hard to keep hidden, and the screen has made it a rolling tablet to the kids.

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