B.E.A.T.A. (Bluetooth-Enabled Anti-Theft Alarm), serves to prevent your valuables from being stolen, specifically your laptop. The hardware device wraps around the lid of one’s laptop and is enabled with Bluetooth from an Android device. Any motion of the laptop triggers a speaker and sends an alert to the smartphone.
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Project Description
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Installation
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Purpose
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What I Learned
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Video Demo
B.E.A.T.A. (Bluetooth-Enabled Anti-Theft Alarm), serves to prevent your valuables from being stolen, specifically your laptop. The hardware device wraps around the lid of one’s laptop and is enabled with Bluetooth from an Android device. Any motion of the laptop triggers a speaker and sends an alert to the smartphone
2.1 Installation Steps
Download the “Arduino bluetooth controller” app from the Google Play Store
Connect to the Bluetooth device titled “HC-05”
Enter the password: 1234
Choose the button as the interface type
2.2 Usage
To use B.E.A.T.A., if you are walking away from your working area, simply slide B.E.A.T.A over the lid of your laptop and close the lid.
Follow the “Installation Steps” guide as seen above, and once you have located the button, press the button to enable B.E.A.T.A.
B.E.A.T.A. is now enabled. Any motion to the laptop will sound an alarm and send an alert to your smartphone.
To disenable B.E.A.T.A., simply click the button again, and now B.E.A.T.A will no longer sound an alarm even if the laptop is used.
The goal of this project is to provide a tool for people working in a public space to protect their valuables with should they need to leave their working space temporarily without forfeiting their seat. While the initial target audience was college students as college students often work in public spaces and have high incidences of laptop theft, the applicability of this project truly extends to anyone working in a public environment.
During this project, I learned how to work with Bluetooth as well as create 3D-print designs in TinkerCAD. I used a HC-05 Bluetooth module combined with an Arduino Nano to establish a serial connection between the hardware device and an Android phone. The TinkerCAD design helped us design a box that would encase all of our hardware and appear more presentable compared to an open breadboard and wire.
Additionally, I also learned more about the prototype testing project and simply how long this process can take. I built this device for a hardware hackathon, and while I finished the prototype quite early into the hackathon, I continued to test and test for hours, and I finished right before the deadline. For example, calibrating items like the sensitivity of the accelerator took a long time because I wanted to ensure that someone bumping the table would not trigger the alarm but that someone stealing the laptop would trigger the alarm, so there was a lot of fine-tuning to be done in situations like this.
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