Arduino range communication on Playa

[otti]

I'm designing a project that lets people find each other through range (ie. "you're getting hotter"). Technically, I would need Arduino-like controllers to talk to each other and identify approximately how far away several other controllers are. Each controller could approximate the order of the distance from another controller (ie. 1ft, 10ft, 100ft, 1000ft+). Since I need multiple controllers to find multiple other controllers, I was thinking that digital wireless would be best although I am not sold on that as a tech. I am sold on Arduino unless there's a compelling argument for a Pi or something else.

An RF receiver/transmitter would accomplish the job, such as this one (

I would love some other ideas, especially if you have experience building wireless that has held up to the variety of wild conditions on the Playa (like a shit ton of other wireless devices crowding the frequency).

[some seeing eye]

433 has good propagation and minimal interference. There was talk on ePlaya of (ARPS?) for art cars last year. Suggest you add a GPS shield, transmit each actual location and calculate hot or cold at the receiver.

[Token]

+ GPS shield.

Arduino, Pi, etc not famous for their clocks and timekeeping which you would need.

Alternative is wifi and RTLS data. Very congested though.

[maladroit]

Check this out for some more ideas: http://makezine.com/2015/10/13/watch-th ... es-evolve/

[otti]

Thanks! This radio badge that maladroit linked to is interesting. GPS will require digital communication to send coordinates so I'm digging into that. It does seem GPS will be best though.

[Toe]

Did this end up happening? Did it work ok? What protocols did you use? What were some traps you wish you'd known about beforehand? What would you do differently next time?