A good 2 years after I started using this platform (and loving every minute of it) I’ve thought of one thing that is missing…
3D location…
I mean, the way the system works to locate a person is perfect for individual homes at ground level… but, what if you live in a flat, way up high in a building?
You don’t really arrive home until you get to the altitude of your flat…
ST or alternative presence fob may be the only way right now. ST needs to add altitude to its mobile presence sensors and convert the location circle into a globe
One problem I’ve seen with the smartpresence devices is, apart from battery life, that it gets detected from a good 100 meters in diagonal from the flat to the garage entry!
I would agree that Ibeacons are likely the most practical way to implement this at the present time. It’s still a 360° signal, but with the more expensive beacons you can vary the transmission strength to reduce the range significantly. I have mine set up so that I’m not detected as “home” until I reach the wheelchair ramp at my front door. The whole detection area is only about 3 m.