How Gate Keeper Works

Gate Keeper controls the dust collection blast gates in the shop. Each gate is driven by a gate node — a small box mounted near the gates it controls. The gates have no manual controls: everything is operated from this app or through Home Assistant.

Controlling gates

The Dashboard shows a card for every configured gate. Tap a card to open or close that gate — the card reflects the gate's real position, reported live by limit switches on the gate itself. If you try to close the last open gate, the app asks for confirmation first, since the dust collector should not run with every gate closed.

Gate nodes are standard ESPHome devices, so Home Assistant can discover and control the same gates directly. The app and Home Assistant can be used interchangeably.

Setting up a new gate node

  1. Connect it to Wi-Fi. A brand-new (or wiped) node broadcasts an open Wi-Fi network named gatekeeper-XXXXXX. Join it from a phone and a setup page appears — enter the shop Wi-Fi name and password there. The node saves them and connects.
  2. Wait for discovery. Once on the network, the node announces itself via mDNS and shows up under Admin → Discovered within a few seconds. If it doesn't appear, use the Rescan button there.
  3. Add it. Discovered nodes are never added automatically — press Add to register the node, or Ignore to hide a device that isn't part of this system. Ignored devices stay hidden until un-ignored.
  4. Create its gates. Under Admin → Gates, add a gate for each blast gate wired to the node: give it a name and pick the gate terminal (0–5) it's wired to. It then appears on the Dashboard.

Buttons on the gate node

Each node has two buttons, labeled on the housing:

RSTPress once to restart the node. Use it if the node stops responding. Settings and Wi-Fi credentials are kept.
WIPEHold for 5 seconds to erase the stored Wi-Fi settings. The LED blinks to confirm, then the node restarts in setup mode and broadcasts its gatekeeper-XXXXXX network again (see “Setting up a new gate node”). Only needed when the Wi-Fi network changes. Short presses do nothing.

Status LED

OffHealthy — the node is connected to Wi-Fi.
BlinkingNot connected to Wi-Fi. Check the network, or press RST to restart the node.