Can a zigbee door sensor be used as a presence device?

(Damon Blumenstein) #1

Just a thought here, but could you use any Zigbee sensor with some new presence tag code to act as a presence device like the smart things presence tag? I have a whole bunch of extra Zigbee door sensors that are really small that I could use for this.

(Chris) #2

You can create a virtual presence device in IDE, then use a CoRE piston to set it either present or away using whatever conditions you want, including a contact sensor. I wasn’t happy with the reliability of the phone presence by itself so I created a couple of virtual switches to be controlled by IFTTT, then created the piston below to set my virtual presence (Chris is the virtual presence device, and Chris phone is my phone presence). You could do something very similar with the door sensors.

(Damon Blumenstein) #3

yes, but if I toss the door sensor in my car, I just want it to log when it comes into the Zigbee mesh network, not when I do something physically with the sensor. I literally want to physically substitute it for a presence tag.

(Andrea Bianco) #4

I would not recommend that, when I have physically removed a device from the home/ hub location… it is OFFLINE and does not just magically rejoin when you pull up (would not just “detect” your presence).

(Damon Blumenstein) #5

any idea what is different about a presence tag than any other Zigbee sensor? just curious

(Andrea Bianco) #6

Resident engineer @JDRoberts care to explain?
Is it that you just want to leave something in your car (so you don’t have to worry about did you take the “correct” presence device to CMD your smart house?) Or is your “Phone” not working as you expect for location purpose?

#7

The SmartThings branded arrival sensor is unusual in that it checks in with the hub on a time schedule every 30 seconds. That’s actually all that it does. Then it’s up to your cloud account to notice how long it’s been since the last check in and how many check ins have been missed and it’s the cloud account that marks it as away.

You could try it with your door sensor by giving it a device type of a presence sensor but I doubt if it’s going to work. Most battery operated zigbee sensors don’t do that kind of check in because it runs down the battery life.

A door sensor is probably aiming for a battery life two years. You’re lucky to get one out of the arrival sensor and it does nothing else except the check ins.

So if you happen to find a model that also does regular check in on a time schedule, it could substitute, I just don’t know of any door sensors that are designed for that.

(Damon Blumenstein) #8

OK, so there is no way to write any type of device handler that would allow to set that? The extra sensors I have are the NYCE tilt sensors. I was thinking you could set that polling like you could on say the GoControl battery polling maybe? As for the battery life, I can apply a voltage regulated power supply to the battery terminal to fix that issue.

And yes, @femwitjava I just want to leave it in the car. Reason being, sometimes I have a babysitter that I would like to allow to take my car with the kids and when they leave/come back, the alarm is armed/disarmed.

#9

It depends on the specific device, but probably not. Configuration of that type is done for motion sensors to determine how often they check the environment. It’s not done for door sensors which are woken up by the physical change in status.

(Andrea Bianco) #10

@JDRoberts Is there a possibility that Mike Maxwells uDTH would work for this case? I honestly do not know but it just popped in my head.

#11

Unfortunately the device handler can’t change the reporting schedule of the physical device except through configuring the existing parameters, and it doesn’t appear that the NYCE tilt sensor’s allow for configuring the reporting schedule.

Universal device type handler could let you treat a sensor report as something else, but in this case the first requirement is that the device check in on a regular timed schedule. That’s in the firmware of the device, not handled in code.

(Damon Blumenstein) #12

I think that pretty much puts that possibility in the trash. Thank you for the explanation.

(Chris) #13

Stick the magnet part of a contact sensor to the bumper on the car, the sensor part to the wall, then pull reaaaallllllllyyyyyyyyy close to the wall to close the switch on the sensor :grin:

(Damon Blumenstein) #14

Lol, I’ll try that