[Elite Worm] had a problem; there had been two minor burglaries from a storage unit. The system had thick concrete walls, cellular signal was bad down there, and long-term wiring wasn’t possible. He therefore set about working on a burglar alarm that would in shape his unique requirements.

An ESP32 is the heart of the operation, paired with a long-range LoRa radio module running at 868 MHz. This lower frequency has much better penetration when it comes to thick walls compared to higher-frequency technologies like 4G, 5G or WiFi. With a bit coil antenna sticking out the top of the 3D-printed enclosure, the device was easily able to communicate back to [Elite Worm] when the storage system was accessed illegitimately.

With an eye to security, the device doesn’t just warn of door open events. If signal is lost from the remote transmitter in the storage unit, perhaps because of an advanced adversary cutting the power, the alarm will also be raised. There’s still some work to be done on the transmitter side, though, as [Elite Worm] needs to make sure the door sensor is dependable under all conditions.

Many put their hardware skills to work in service of security, and we routinely see proprietary alarm systems customized by enterprising hackers. video after the break.