Hello!
Am I wrong if I say that the location in Homey is inaccurate?
When I leave home and cross the street Honey still think I’m home and I have to activate the absence by hand.
Does anyone know how to get Homey to know that 100 meters is no longer inside the house?
Tanks
The radius of Homey’s geofence is roughly 300 meters.
Which is not adjustable and often way to much for Homey users.
I myself use the iOs-app ‘Locative’. In that app I can define multiple locations and have a geofence as small as 50 meters.
At first, I also thought that the radius could be a little smaller.
But why should it be? Why do you absolutely need a more precise location?
It’s also important to note that Homey isn’t solely responsible for determining the exact location. It’s a combination of several components…
It’s not just 300 meters; even at 150 meters, it’s very inconsistent. It is surprising that Homey treats location data so crudely, without giving us the ability to define, configure, or even see the details of how it’s being handled.
When I’m running in the park or walking around the neighborhood, Homey detects me ‘entering’ and ‘leaving’ my house 10 times over.
Athom should not treat location settings and accuracy as a minor detail. Their lack of focus on this issue is forcing us to rely on third-party apps and share our location data elsewhere just to get basic geofencing to work.
Hi Asrerix,
The reason we need more precision is simple: Reliability.
When the radius is too large or the handling is ‘loose,’ it creates false positives. If my ‘Arrive Home’ flow turns on the lights, disarms the alarm, or opens the gate, I can’t have that happening 10 times while I’m just jogging nearby. A smart home should understand the difference between ‘being home’ and ‘passing by.’
You’re right that Homey depends on OS-level location services (iOS/Android), but other platforms allow users to fine-tune the ‘geofence’ or set a ‘dwell time’ (delay) to filter out these bounces. By not giving us these tools, Athom leaves us with a binary system that is either too sensitive or completely unreliable for those of us living in active neighborhoods.
It’s quite pointless to write your improvement propositions here;
You’d send those to Athom: https://homey.app/support
The Homey geo system seems unchanged since 2016, maybe it’s time for upgrading.
About running around “near the house”:
Most GPS based geo systems I use(d) advice a minimum distance of 150 to 200m.
I guess Athom is not going to change the distance.
When you need such a small distance, consider using the phone’s wifi connection with your SSID as narrow home/away distance.
Hi Peter_Kawa,
Thanks for your reply. I posted this here so everyone can see, weigh in, and share their thoughts on this issue. If Athom wants to solve it, doing so here is much better than through a private email, as it allows for collective feedback and different perspectives.
As I said, I understand the need and know that there are other products where you can set the distance even smaller. However, these are not always as accurate the smaller the distance is.
But I also think that you could achieve your goal via a flow with an appropriate delay or variables or query. Or, as Peter_Kawa writes, you could use the Wi-Fi connection from your smartphone.
So far, this has been able to meet all my needs.
Asterix I appreciate the suggestions, but relying on complex flows, delays, or variables just to fix a basic geofencing issue feels like a workaround for a missing core feature.
If Homey can’t distinguish between me being at the gym and being at home, the least Athom could do is allow us to see the exact size of the geofence on the map. This would let us strategically place the center of the zone to avoid these ‘overlaps.’
Furthermore, a native combination of GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth (instead of just one) would be much more reliable. We shouldn’t have to resort to external webhooks or third-party workarounds just to be sure that when we leave the house, everything works as expected.
You can find that out for yourself. Create a flow that notifies you when you leave or arrive. Then you’ll know how many meters away or where this zone is.
Can you name a system that exactly meets your expectations of a geofence?
I use the homey app smart presence.
I would recommend Olisto for your use case. It’s a free mobile app that allows you to create automations (Triggs) for location events. You can create multiple locations, and you can set the radius. You can create a Trigg like this:
When:
Location: Someone is at the location
Then:
Olisto Connect: make an HTTP GET request to https://webhook.homey.app/<homey cloudid>/<event name>
You can get the Homey CloudID in the Homey mobile app: More→Settings→General
You can then create a Flow like this:
When:
Logic: an event recieved (select the event name and enter that in the URL in Olisto
Then:
Mark [your account] as Home
Then do the same for the Away from home Trigg. This should work for your use case.
For example—though it could be another—the NUKI geofence is the area you must enter for the Bluetooth search of your device to begin. Depending on your surroundings, the ideal geofence size may vary according to your preference. This system is applicable to Homey Pro.
I should have bet that you would mention the example of Nuki. 
However, this is a single device and not a system. In addition, the Nuki Smart Lock is always mounted on a door, which is the most convenient location for meeting your needs. And if you have two entrance doors, you also need two Nuki…
You can’t install a smart home system on one or more doors… As you yourself write, the geofence triggers another action (Bluetooth search), so it’s basically no different than using another tool, as Peter_Kawa wrote.
In my opinion, it’s not entirely comparable…
Hi Asterix,
I mentioned Nuki because you asked for an example, but let’s not get confused: mentioning Nuki doesn’t mean Homey has to be Nuki. There is a vast middle ground between the two. Right now, Homey’s localization is simply opaque, hermetic, and rigid.
I refuse to accept the idea that ‘it’s always been this way and always will be,’ and we shouldn’t just tell each other to ‘go use other tools’ to patch its flaws. That is precisely why I am writing here in the forum, rather than just sending a cold email to Athom; to discuss how to actually improve this.
A smart system of this caliber deserves high-level localization, not what we have now. It should be flexible enough to let us know the geofence radius and allow us to modify it. Only that. Nothing more, nothing less.
Your exact idea (“make geofence radii configurable”) has been discussed many times on this forum over the last 10 or so years, and yet, it’s still not implemented. At some point you should yield to the fact that, apparently, Athom is not interested in implementing it, lest we keep on regurgitating the same issue over and over again with users that think they’ve ran into a shortcoming of Homey that nobody else has ever considered.
Also, this forum isn’t tracked by Athom for feature requests. The only official way for doing so it by issuing a support request.
Hi Jose, that‘s OK for me.
Hi robertklep,
I see things differently. Forums are meant for communication, sharing ideas, and finding solutions—not for following a rigid, established order. A forum is not a ‘committee of elders’ where newcomers are expected to stay silent just because a topic has been discussed before.
Treating those who bring fresh perspectives as if they are ‘immature’ or ‘naive’ for wanting to improve the system is a mistake. That attitude doesn’t help the community; it stifles it. Saying we should just ‘yield to the facts’ and stop talking about it goes against the very spirit of what a forum should be.
If a core feature like localization is still rigid and opaque after 10 years, the solution isn’t to stop talking about it—it’s to keep pointing it out until it’s addressed. Progress doesn’t come from silence or conformity.
This has nothing to do with silence or conformity, but with pragmatism and managing expectations. If you want this feature, you can either continue yelling at the clouds, or you can consider one of the solutions that have been offered in this thread.
But please don’t think that your idea is a “fresh perspective”; as I’ve already explained, this is one of many features that have been discussed on this forum for many years. Since ChatGPT apparently hasn’t told you, here are some other topics:
Looking at the dynamics of this thread, it is easy to see signs of what might be described as ‘Veteran User Syndrome’ or ‘Gatekeeping’ (the club doorman syndrome).
This manifests when long-time members act as ‘doormen’ of the forum, implicitly deciding which topics are valid and which users are worthy of being heard. Using terms like ‘regurgitating’ to dismiss a concern about a flaw that has persisted for 10 years doesn’t necessarily reflect expertise; it can be perceived as a resignation to mediocrity.
When responses lean toward condescension, scolding, or contempt instead of constructive dialogue, the effect isn’t to ‘protect’ the forum, but to stifle it. Years of experience shouldn’t function as a barrier to fresh ideas or as a reason to belittle those who refuse to accept a ‘black box’ system.
The goal here shouldn’t be to make anyone feel harassed or belittled. It should be possible to point out Homey’s shortcomings and demand better tools without being told to ‘just yield and give up.’ New perspectives bring value and shouldn’t be met with the arrogance of those who may have simply grown used to the system’s defects.
