This Smart Garage Stoplight Makes Parking a Breeze, And You Can Build One Too

If this sounds like rocket science to you, well, it’s not, as someone has built such a device using a cheap Arduino board.

Paired with two sonic sensors mounted on the garage ceiling, the Arduino powers a system that can detect the position of the car and then turn the lights of the stoplight accordingly.

“When I pull into the garage about halfway, the green light goes off and the yellow light goes on, indicating I'm ‘close’ to being parked. When I reach the appropriate ‘parked’ spot, the yellow light goes off and the red light goes on,” the engineer who created this Arduino-based system explains.

So basically, the system detects when you enter the garage, and when the first sensor scans the vehicle, it activates the yellow light. When the full parking position is reached and the car is detected by the second sensor, it sends a signal to the system to turn on the red light, which means you need to stop the car.

“Each sensor takes multiple samples and averages the distance to produce a quick and accurate measurement. The measurements are used in the Arduino code to determine when to turn on the yellow light, and then the red light,” the dev further notes.

This smart stoplight powered by the Arduino is connected to the smart home, which means that it can automatically activate when the car arrives in front of the house and turn on the green light. When the engine is turned off, it shuts down on its own.

The best thing is that the whole project is rather affordable, as the Arduino Nano costs only $20 (and it’s probably cheaper if you buy a used one online). The total cost also depends on the other components that you want to use for the project, as you can very well use just two simple light bulbs instead of a stop light.