Set up your lot yourself — in about a day.

Last updated: June 12, 2026

Everything in Auto Lot Finder runs on inexpensive, off-the-shelf hardware that you buy, own, and mount yourself. No installer, no site survey, no sales call. If you can mount a security camera and follow a flashing guide, you can set up your lot.

1. What you'll need (per receiver)

The receiver software runs on any Linux machine — a $18 Raspberry Pi, an old Pi 2/3 in a drawer, a retired desktop or laptop, or a $20 used thin client off eBay. Every receiver needs the same radio parts:

…plus a computer to plug it into:

Outdoor mounts also want a vented IP54+ enclosure ($10–20; antenna outside the box) and a 5 V supply — PoE splitter or a small solar kit for poles without outlets. All of it is on Amazon, rtl-sdr.com, or any Pi retailer: roughly $45 per receiver reusing hardware you own, $85–120 buying everything new. You'll also want one 125 kHz TPMS activation tool (EL-50448 style, ~$25) for the intake workflow.

Android receivers (a spare phone + USB-OTG dongle) are on the roadmap — the decoding engine is the same one already inside the app.

2. How many receivers?

TPMS broadcasts carry reliably about 100–150 ft in a yard full of metal. Plan on:

• One receiver per 1.5–2 acres of vehicle storage, plus
• One dedicated intake receiver at your gate or drive lane.

A 5-acre yard is typically 3–4 receivers; a 20-acre yard 10–12. Start sparse — you can always add nodes to fill dead zones later, and the app shows you which zones are quiet.

3. Where to mount them

• Perimeter poles, rooflines, or light masts, 10–20 ft up, antenna vertical.
• Favor line-of-sight down vehicle rows over raw height.
• The intake receiver goes right at the drive lane, within ~50 ft of passing tires.
• Each receiver needs power and Wi-Fi (or Ethernet). For far corners without connectivity, a LoRa backhaul kit (Heltec LoRa32 V3 + a RAK gateway) can relay frames — see the in-app guide.

4. Install the receiver software

Receivers run our own decoding engine — the same one inside the app — as a single small program. It recognizes more sensor types than generic SDR tools, and anything it doesn't recognize is reported automatically so coverage keeps growing with updates. Pick the download for your machine:

Then on the machine (fresh OS install is fine — the installer pulls in everything else):

curl -LO https://adelyons.com/downloads/autolot_node-arm64   # your variant from the table
curl -LO https://adelyons.com/downloads/install.sh
curl -LO https://adelyons.com/downloads/autolot-node.service
chmod +x install.sh
sudo ./install.sh ./autolot_node-arm64 '<NODE_PASSWORD from step 5>'

• The installer sets everything up as a service that starts on boot and restarts itself, and prints your receiver ID — you'll send us that in step 5.
• The receiver hops between 315 MHz (domestic) and 433.92 MHz (import) every 30 seconds automatically.
• The intake node should not hop: give it two dongles, one fixed per band, so it never misses a binding burst (we'll send the two-dongle config with your credentials).
• Health check: journalctl -u autolot-node -f shows live decodes as cars drive past.

5. Pair receivers with your account

1. Create your account and organization in the app (Account → Create organization).
2. Register each receiver below — its ID is printed by the installer in step 4, and the zone name is what the app will show ("Row A", "North fence", …).
3. Each receiver's connection password (NODE_PASSWORD) is emailed to your account address within a minute or two. Re-registering a receiver re-issues its password — safe if you lose one.

Prefer email? Send the receiver IDs and zone names and we'll register them for you.

6. Intake your first car

1. Open the app → Intake, and scan the VIN barcode (driver-side door jamb or windshield).
2. Hold the activation tool near each tire for a second — or simply drive the car past the intake receiver.
3. The app binds the car to its four tire sensors and starts tracking. Park it anywhere; its zone updates within about a minute of the wheels turning.

7. Verify coverage

• Drive one car slowly through each zone; watch it move on the Lot Map.
• A zone that never lights up means its receiver is offline or out of range — check power first, then move the antenna higher.

Troubleshooting

A car isn't showing up

Tire sensors only broadcast while the wheels are moving (or when woken by the activation tool). If a parked car hasn't moved in days, its last known zone is still correct. About 85% of vehicles since 2008 are recognized out of the box; unrecognized sensor types are captured automatically and new decoders ship in regular app updates.

A receiver looks dead

Power-cycle the Pi. If frames still don't arrive, re-run step 4 manually and watch for output — no JSON lines means an antenna/dongle issue; JSON but no app updates means a connectivity issue.