# Stair occupancy using force sensors

**URL:** <https://forum.arduino.cc/t/stair-occupancy-using-force-sensors/930100>\
**Category:** General Guidance\
**Created:** [November 28, 2021, 8:27pm UTC](https://forum.arduino.cc/t/stair-occupancy-using-force-sensors/930100 "2021-11-28T20:27:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 95

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**Author:** ![n4te](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/arduino/user_avatar/forum.arduino.cc/n4te/32/705529_2.png) [@n4te](https://forum.arduino.cc/u/n4te)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2022, 2:20am UTC](https://forum.arduino.cc/t/stair-occupancy-using-force-sensors/930100/95 "2022-04-04T02:20:19Z")

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I played around with the software a bit. It's going to work like this (but probably not red):

![stairs](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/arduino/original/4X/0/1/1/011207c3a498adfa2400c43d63d813f74d496e37.gif)

It figures out the direction of travel and lights up the stairs in front of you, even if you change directions. If it detects 2 people are on the stairs then it goes into an "indeterminate" mode (not shown) where it lights up both the stairs above and below all the stepped on stairs.

I'll have to wait for the sensors to be installed to see if I can detect our doggo, hopefully I can do a special lighting mode for her. 🙂

EDIT: if you made it this far, be sure to check out my follow up topic:

> [@Stair occupancy using force sensors, part 2](https://forum.arduino.cc/t/stair-occupancy-using-force-sensors-part-2/1042117):
>
> Almost a year ago I [posted a thread](https://forum.arduino.cc/t/stair-occupancy-using-force-sensors/930100) about using force sensors to detect when stairs are stepped on so I can animate the LED strip in each of 16 stairs. I got it working, soldered up in a protoboard, but it wasn't pretty. Since then I've improved it a lot, so I wanted to show off the new solution and also give special thanks to @DaveEvans for sticking with me so long as I struggled through learning and getting things working. First, I can make a proper schematic now! I improved the…

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