r/homeautomation 1d ago

PERSONAL SETUP My DIY radar speed camera: Mullet Edition—Business in the front, party in the back.

I've found a nice way to hide my radar speed camera on the street so I can start testing it. From the front, it just looks like every other slow down sign. In the back, is where the party is at.

I cut a small hole in the sign for the camera and attached it all (radar, camera, wifi, and solar panel) to the back. Of course the solar panel looks way out of place. Without it no one would ever see the radar unit, so I think I will power it with a long cable instead. Right now I'm using a second sign to hide it from the rear.

Performance wise, it's working far better than I expected. The radar has a range of about 130ft-180ft (about 40-55 meters).

Attached are 2 photos it took automatically. One is of a white SUV driving from left to right which is about 180ft away.

The second is a white sedan driving towards the camera, this car registered 14 MPH when the photo was taken.

I still need to figure out the best speed and timing for the photos to get the car much closer to the camera. A video would be nice but I think images will be easier to manage.

Of course this thing is nowhere near ready and still needs quite a bit more work. I'll open source everything in a few weeks once I fix some glaring problems. I'm also combining all the dev boards into one board, so it'll be about 3 times smaller than what you see in the photos.

97 Upvotes

180 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/wizzard419 1d ago

So... what will you do with the data? Like are you part of an HOA and can issue tickets? Also, double check your local laws, usually okay to point a camera at the street but it is always good to CYA.

2

u/awp_india 1d ago

What’s “CYA”?

-2

u/Orange-Llama 23h ago

It’s short for “See ya” which was a shortening for “See you later”

Use it around hip youths for full-use potential. Even some workplaces have adopted this language as its brevity saves countless hours from meaningless farewells!

2

u/Orange-Llama 23h ago

I already feel dumb for my previous troll response. It means “Cover Your Ass” referring to making sure you’re not putting yourself in harms way before doing something that could get you in trouble, typically the legal kind. Really is used often in workplaces.

3

u/awp_india 23h ago

Ahh gotcha, thx lol

I was so damn lost with the first response.