I think this has been done for public places. A lazy approach (not using ML) is cropping/contour finding, then masking (opencv) against an empty parking lot, so if something is there like a car, would change the result.

The black parking lot would change in shade/hue so have to account for a range.

Thanks for the reply. Yeh I’m sure something like this exists. I could probably just mask out the area around the space o lab the streets outside our house and then send a notification when it becomes available.

The complexity maybe comes in in identifying our cars parked there vs someone else’s, so maybe I need number plate recognition. However my camera would be top down so likely no number plate would be visible.

Any thoughts/recommendations are helpful