Moving the discussion from where it was (mobile app), because it no longer is about the mobile app at all.
I’ve tried a bunch of different methods. The ST sensors, which are good for a month then flake out. Various presence apps including Life360 - which is great at detecting when I leave the house, but terrible at detecting when I return (deleted - more about that in a moment).
I hope/believe that I have a valid path forward, finally.
EDIT - I must note that I do not use cell service, I only use the phone WiFi.
The phone does great at detecting cells within range. I’m using the CDMA cells, and not the LTE. Because it turns out the LTE cells initially all report as the same cell! So you can use CDMA cells plus network or gps or whatever to, for example, trigger a shopping list to open when you arrive at the grocery store. I’ve been doing that for over a week now and it works well.
So using Tasker, upon your return home you would do the following:
- when within range of the CDMA cells that define your local neighborhood, turn on WiFi
- when you phone connects to WiFi, use Sharptools to do the action(s) you want.
As long as your WiFi extends out past your entrance door a bit, that works.
But there are issues.
How do we get it to NOT trigger each time the WiFi re-engages while you are at home? You don’t want your front door to unlock in the middle of the night just because your wireless router had a 3-minute hiccup.
The answer to this is: a variable. Have a GLOBAL variable that says “i’m Home”, and make your Tasker profile always check that condition as part of the context. (My variable is ATHOME, and the states are ‘= H’ for home and ‘<>H’ for away.) So if the WiFi goes off for a few minutes and then comes back on, or you turn off your phone for the night and turn it back on in the morning, Tasker sees that activity and checks the variable… if the variable says “i’m home” then the context is not fulfilled and Tasker does not perform an action.
The action sequence: do what tasks you want done, then set the variable to ‘home’.
All well and good so far.
But now we need a way to reliably tell Tasker to set the variable to ”I’m not home” when you leave the house. Hypothetically, merely getting out of range of your own WiFi (WiFi Near > Invert) should do the trick. But i’m Going a bit further, and scoping out the neighborhood. I want that to be redundant, to ensure the variable gets set. So if I pass a specific WiFi a few houses down, then Tasker knows I’m not home and sets the variable accordingly (good for walking/running, cycling). Likewise if I reach a CDMA cell tower that is not within range of my home, set the variable. So I’m scoping out the scenario in all directions, and accumulating those cells into a context.
As for deleting life360, it consumes lots of resources and does little in return. But it convinced me to get a microSD to expand the memory of my burner phone… the card, at $17, is almost as costly as the entire phone ($20) lol
