So my wife’s ST app mobile presence has always been unreliable. Due to this I purchased a key fob that resides in her car, which also can be unreliable at times. Last week, I decided to install WW-DRT on my Asus router with a script to detect when her phone connects and it works great, however I don’t have signal on my Asus router towards the rear of my house so her phone disconnects fand connects to another access point that doesn’t support WW-DRT, so therefore this becomes unreliable too.
I decided to setup a rule in Rule Machine which requires 2 of the 3 presence sensors state to update a master virtual presence switch when majority wins and it was working great until tonight when her ST app wasn’t reporting her home and she kept moving around the house disconnecting from the WW-DRT router. Majority wins, so it had her away when she wasn’t.
I would say the key fob car is probably the most reliable out of the 3 but I am torn with how to redo my logic to make it more reliable in general. Anyway else have any ideas?
It depends in large part on the details of your use case. If you want the presence to be detected when you’re still half a block away so your garage doors open by the time you get to your driveway, that will lead you to one kind of set up.
In my case, I want a very small area of detection, basically just the entry to my front door. So I use an I beacon and am very happy. It’s had perfect reliability, and covers exactly the area I want covered.
There are multiple ways to connect it to smartthings. I like the Beecon + iOS app Because it allows for an adjustable range and it’s already set up to use the IFTTT maker channel. There are other ways as well. But obviously because of the narrow range of the IBeacon this doesn’t solve the garage door use case.
So I think the first question is always what’s the detection distance that you want to use?
Thanks guys. I failed to mention I tried life360 also and it had issues as well. She usually doesn’t carry a purse but carries a wallet/keychain and refuses to add bulk to it I would love to wipe her phone out as I do believe its software issues(she’s had several new hardware replacements and all continue to give trouble with the ST mobile app). I also think the fact she never goes into the app is an issue too as its not running in background when she reboots phone, etc.
@JDRoberts, no worries about garage door. So driveway detection is good for me. However, we are a iOS household, so I believe beacons are not an option for me.
IBeacons work best with iOS devices (it’s an Apple standard), Google just last year introduced “Eddystone,” their new version of beacons, so there are now more android options than there used to be. Some beacons, like Estimote, Broadcast on both the IBeacon and Eddystone standard.
Thanks. I didn’t know much about iBeacons until I just did some research. I am probably not going to go a fourth route due to the fact I don’t feel like spending more money on this problem that ST really ultimately has to fix. I would probably need a few of them around my house for it to work right. I also don’t feel like installing yet another app on my wifes phone I would be better off replacing my network extender with a WW-DRT compatible one as that solution still works. For now, i am trying @bridaus Presence App. Today it worked well, except I did get a SMH false alert when my wife arrived home but what else is new?!
Add some geofence app to her smartphone and use it in my app. Either ST app, Life360, or IFTTT. Then set the geofence big enough for it to turn off SHM before you get home. Size dependent on how fast she drives.
Get rid of any method that raises false events, slow but reliable is a good thing.
Thanks. The problem with setting a larger geofence is I use geofencing to open my garage doors. I don’t want them opened too soon for security reasons Do you think your smart app will work well with my setup? (not counting the false positive SHM.
I would love to wipe her phone out as I do believe its software issues(she’s had several new hardware replacements and all continue to give trouble with the ST mobile app). I also think the fact she never goes into the app is an issue too as its not running in background when she reboots phone, etc.