Wireless bathroom occupied indicator?

[yuppicide]

I'm not very handy building things, but thought maybe someone would have a lead on this.

 

Would anyone have any information on where to go (on the web) and find information I can use to build (or have someone build) some sort of wireless indicator to tell when a bathroom is occupied?

 

The bathroom is about 30 or 40 feet away from where I want the indicator. I guess the unit can tell if the bathroom is occupied or not by light sensor. If light in bathroom is on, then light on my co-workers desk lights up.

 

Every day this lady seems to always get up and go to the bathroom when it's occupied. Happens multiple times in a day usually. Thought it would be neat to build something.

[Cliff Friedel]

You could do the detection either by photosensor or even by just having the door wired with pads that would complete the circuit when closed. That would be the door part.

 

Thinking about the wireless, you could use an IR LED. Have the bathroom door circuit light an IR LED when the circuit is completed. Build the remote circuit to detect IR light and light a regular LED. So, IR light on, regular LED lights, if not, then it doesn't. Label the regular LED as 'OCCUPIED'.

 

Both of those should be fairly simple to build. You would need line of sight and would have to play with the LED power to make sure the light would reach the detector. I use 9v rechargeables for this stuff so you don't have the big battery packs you get with AA rechargeables, but you should be able to do this with 2 AAs if you wanted to I would think. Other than that, I think you should be able to make this in an afternoon.

[Cliff Friedel]

Here is an IR detector circuit that would probably work.

 

http://hackedgadgets.com/2007/11/10/ir-detector-circuit/

 

The bathroom door circuit would be a simple single LED lamp setup with a switch. This should give you what you need to construct that.

 

http://unclean.org/howto/led_circuit.html

 

Hope those help.