Live at spots.madebynexa.com

Know before
you go. Every seat,
live.

A smart library seat tracker that fuses an ESP32 + RFID reader with a real-time web app — so students see open seats, reserve a spot, and check the room's noise level from their phone.

See it live How it works
💳 Card tapped
🔊 43 dB · Quiet
Reading Room LIVE
27
spots free of 30
Occupied
2
Reserved
1
Noise
43
0
seats tracked live
0s
refresh interval
0
sensors & outputs
24/7
from any phone
How it works

One tap, four moving parts.

Every interaction flows from the hardware in the room to a live page in your pocket — the server is the single source of truth, so the LCD, the database, and the web app never disagree.

01
💳

Tap in

A student taps their RFID card on the RC522 reader at the door.

02
🔌

ESP32 sends

The ESP32 reads the card UID and POSTs it to the cloud over WiFi.

03

Server decides

PHP + MySQL toggle the seat, update the count, and log the scan.

04
📱

Everyone sees

The live web app updates within seconds — on the LCD and every phone.

The build

Hardware you can touch,
software you can open.

A genuine full-stack IoT project — soldered sensors on one end, a deployed web API on the other.

🧩 The hardware

ESP32 dev board wired on a breadboard
💳
RC522 RFID reader
13.56 MHz reader over SPI — captures each card's unique UID.
🖥
1602 I²C LCD
Shows the live welcome message and seat count right at the door.
🔊
Sound sensor
Samples ambient noise so the room's quiet-vs-loud level is tracked.
💡
LEDs + buzzer
Green in, red out, a beep on every tap — instant physical feedback.

💻 The software

PHP + MySQL API on a live subdomain
Real-time dashboard
A mobile web app polling live seat counts, occupants and noise.
📅
Reservations
Hold a spot for 30m–2h; auto-expires and frees itself, no admin needed.
📊
24-hour noise graph
Timestamped readings drawn into a smooth history chart.
📡
Live heartbeat
The app knows if the ESP32 is online from its last check-in.
Architecture

Edge to cloud to pocket.

A clean hub model: the device reports, the server decides, every client reads the same truth.

🧩
ESP32 + Sensors
RFID · LCD · sound · LEDs
📶
WiFi · HTTPS
POST scan & sound
PHP + MySQL
Namecheap · source of truth
📱
Web App
Any phone, anywhere
Features

Small project, real polish.

Every detail that makes it feel like a product instead of a prototype.

Live seat count

The big number every student actually cares about, updating in seconds.

📅

Timed reservations

Book a spot for a set duration; it expires and frees itself automatically.

👋

One-tap release

Type your name, tap your booking, and give the spot back instantly.

🔊

Noise awareness

See how quiet the room is before you head over — with 24h history.

👤

Who's in

A live roster of who's currently occupying the room, by role.

📡

Device status

A green/red heartbeat shows whether the hardware is online right now.

Built with

The stack

ESP32Arduino / C++RC522 RFID I²C LCDPHPMySQL REST / HTTPSHTML · CSS · JSNamecheap

See Spots running live.

The real seat tracker, deployed and updating in real time. Take a look from your phone.

Open the live app ↗