Thinking about it, i haven’t had a proper vacation in a while. Sure I did not work full time for 2 months before landing the job I work now but I don’t count that as a vacation since I only traveled for my freelance work. Last time I took a ski trip for instance was during the Winter of 2015. And the last time I did not work or go to school for a prolonged period of time was in 2017.

Now that I live in Barcelona, with several ski spots relatively near me, and with a 1-week holiday in April this seems to be the perfect time for me to hit the slopes. Now of course I will be bringing my camera equipment with me, which consists of a HERO7 Black, a GoPro Fusion and a DJI Spark (for now).

I’ve lost 3 cameras in the past: a HERO4 in an amusement park, another HERO4 that replaced that HERO4 in a lake, and a HERO3 that was gone by the wind, literally. Apparently ski spots are prime location to loose your camera so my HERO7 Black is ready with my name on a sticker at the top near the lens and the trusty IF_FOUND.txt in the SD card. But I want to be extra sure I don’t lose it and that I can also see how much battery is left and plan accordingly. Control with my gloves like this would be nice but not necessary since I can use the voice control feature. Also the glove costs $250.

After some tinkering and buying stuff on Amazon I came up with a simple solution: An ESP32 board that hooks onto the undocumented GoPro bluetooth device API and notifies me when it’s connected and when it’s not. I will call this device “Guardian”.