Geofencing Mode Changes

[h0ckeysk8er (Bruce Pinsky)]

@hevykevy420

I have seen the virtual presence buttons on some of the available trigger lists, but I admit, I would need to know more about how the presence is determined or established by ST (this info doesn’t seem to be available in the app, at least that I can find). I say this because if motion reported by a sensor could cause a mode change between away, to home, that would be a security concern as I do have my security system tied into the home/away modes.

I created virtual presence sensors using the vEdge Creator Edge driver since I have a hub. Alternately, you can create a cloud based virtual presence sensor using the ST Advanced Web App. The virtual sensor doesn’t change on its own, you need Routines to sync them to your Member Location, so two Routines like:

If Member1 Arrives Home
  Then
Set Member1 Virtual Presence to Present

and

If Member1 Leaves Home
  Then
Set Member1 Virtual Presence to Not Present

then you have your Location mode Routines trigger off the virtual sensors instead of Member location like:

If Member1 Virtual Presence Not Present
  and
Member2 Virtual Presence Not Present
  then
Set Location Mode to Away

and of course you would adjust all your Location mode Routines accordingly.

I set it up this way after Life360 went away in ST and I wanted a way to decouple my presence states from the underlying tracking mechanism. That way I can change out the geo-tracking method without ever having to touch Routines that are triggered by presence. It also gives me a way to see that geo-tracking is working since I have devices I can put on the Favorites page that shows member presence state (which can’t be seen with just ST Member location geo-tracking).