In this talk, Phobos Group’s Dan Tentler evolves his previous work on hotel room security by demonstrating a fully portable security system built on Home Assistant, Z-Wave devices, CO2 sensors, and millimeter wave radar. What began as basic physical security measures has transformed into a tactical deployment platform capable of detecting human presence through walls, triggering automated alerts, and providing comprehensive situational awareness in temporary accommodations.
Dan walks through the technical fundamentals of each component, explaining how mmWave radar units can detect movement and presence in neighboring rooms or hallways, how CO2 sensors reveal occupancy patterns, and how Home Assistant ties everything together into an automation framework. The system can send alerts, capture images, or trigger any action Home Assistant supports, all deployed and configured rapidly in unfamiliar environments.
The presentation covers real-world use cases that demonstrate the system’s capabilities beyond traditional hotel rooms. For security professionals, researchers, and anyone concerned with physical security while traveling, this talk reveals how consumer automation technology can be repurposed into a sophisticated portable security platform.
About the Author
Dan Tentler is the Executive Founder and CTO of Phobos Group, a boutique information security services and products company. Having been on both red and blue teams, Dan brings a wealth of defensive and adversarial knowledge to the security landscape. Dan has spent time at Twitter, British Telecom, Websense, Anonymizer, Intuit and Sempra Energy and has a strong background in systems, networking, architecture and wireless networks.
About LABScon
This presentation was featured live at LABScon 2025, an immersive 3-day conference bringing together the world’s top cybersecurity minds, hosted by SentinelOne’s research arm, SentinelLabs.
Keep up with all the latest on LABScon here.
