What options might there be for using these as cheap and abundant presence sensors.
None right now. The Bluetooth has not been turned on in the V2 hub yet.
Good point celblazer of course.
If you don’t mind carrying your phone around, it can set your presence based on being near active bluetooth devices. Program combinations like Tasker and Sharptools will let you set a presence based on being “near a bluetooth device”, or “connected to a bluetooth device”. (I use “connected to wifi” for larger area presences, like home, work, car, etc…but bluetooth works too, connecting or not) You just need to create a device and set the device handler to be a simulated presence sensor. Just create one for each location you put a bluetooth device or beacon. Then set up a profile in tasker for each location of presence.
Now the devices you had in your link, they may not be searching for something to connect to or beaconing…they may just be listening for a “where are you” message from the phone when you tell your phone you’ve lost your keys or whatever If they don’t “speak” on their own, you cant really detect them. And if you have to tell an app to start looking for something, you might as well just press a button on the phone to say to Smartthings presence, I’m here. So I don’t know if those specific devices will work simply…but keep looking, you’re on the right track if you want presence detection.
Thanks N8XD, sadly us iPhone 4 peasants don’t have the luxury of Tasker but if Samsung are listening I’d happily carry a Nexus!