[APP][Pro] Beacon - Detect your presence with BLE beacons

One cheap Ali for the dog and two tile pro 2018 overhere.

Thanks for information

I use before >25 for outside range to limit false positive.
Is it possible to set a bigger limit than 10 for this setting ?

Since this limit, I can’t found a settings with no error and it’s very frustrating for my flows based on presence.

Thanks a lot
(I use nut mini and cheap AliExpress tags)

This is it, Cyril.
@Koktail is there a reason to limit outside range setting to 10?

That setting has the purpose to cancel out false positives. Today the false positives are way more frequently by reasons unknown. We should investigate why this is happening, not trying to filter out more false positives.

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Since two weeks. I suddenly have no false positives/negatives. The only difference is that around that time I started resetting Homey every night?! Coincidence or causalety?

Configuration
3 x Tile Pro 2018
Homey Early 2018, v. 6.0.1
Beacon app 1.3.1

Settings Beacon: 40, 10, 1, 20

Regards,
Paul

Blockquote

How can you set 20 in the lest parameter
Impossible since few weeks (limited to 10)

I have tried lot and lot of settings, and never had a really reliable configuration
Lot of false positive, from 3 to … Too many
Impossible to activate / deactivate alarm automatically with this since this update, ant others flows…

Have you tried 5 5.1.15 ?
Works for weeks now here

Didn’t do anything special to set the last parameter to 20! Strange?!
Regards,
Paul

Idem : impossible to set a value that is > 10 in the last parameter on version 1.3.1, as confirmed by Piero-F :

Verification amount outside range (default 5)” must be within the range 1 ~ 10

A few days ago, Homey has released the version 7.0.0 of its firmware.

After running the Beacon app in debug mode with various app settings, I can say that the BLE scanning has improved compared to v6.1.0.

However, there are some caveats.

  1. The BLE scanning duration in firmware 7.0.0 is always 5 seconds (as stated by official updated documentation), regardless the value you enter in the Discovery timeout (default 10) Beacon app setting. What does it mean? It means that the interval is quite short and the likelihood of a beacon not being discovered in such a short interval is quite high. The consequence is that the parameter Verification amount outside range (default 5) should be set to a high value (even up to 10) for avoiding false “inside-range → outside range” events.
  2. The time between two consecutive BLE scanning can be shortened as much as you like. However, if that time is shorter than 15 seconds, Homey does not perform a new scanning but, rather, it returns immediately the result of last scanning. This alters the beacon detection logic in Beacon app. Thus, it is strongly recommended that the value of parameter The delay between reading sensor values in seconds is never less than 15. On the other hand, there is no reason for its value to be greater than 15 as this would slow down the beacon detection logic in the Beacon app.

In conclusion, I would suggest the following parameters in Beacon app v1.3.x with Homey v7.0.0: 15.5.1.10.

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I’ve found out that the settings are cached also. So changes on the interval are not used directly. I’m currently investigating a fix for this.

2 Likes

I assume a Homey restart will empty the cache? As workaround?

I’m still on old homey version 4.2 and as long I keep reading trouble. I don’t upgrade. There is just no incentive.

You don’t need to / have to upgrade…
Keep in mind mostly only people with troubles write about it. Good news is no news.

1 Like

Works ok so far for the last 20 hours!

I’d also like to higher this number if possible, Sinds I’ve a lot of false positives. And that in a 75m3 apartment with homey pretty much in the centre. I now use wifi to detect absence and beacon to detect presence.

IF smart presence detects a person left,
AND beacon is false
Then set person away.

IF beacon becomes true
AND person is away
THEN open lock, set person as home

My log. Using 15-5-1-10
From my set of 4 beacons, it’s mostly the ‘Pe_8erdeur’ beacon which gives false positives. All 4 on new batteries.
‘Pe_8erdeur’ and ‘Pe_auto’ lie 4 to 5m away from Homey; ‘Gast’ and ‘Lief’ 10 to 100cm.
So the distance to Homey is very much a factor here (and depends on the device brand, see screenshot)

Logs

2021-06-19 02:08.52.050		Flow Peter away > Beacon v Pe_auto 689E 
2021-06-19 02:29.23.692		Flow ELSE Peter Away > beacon v Pe_auto 689E Gecancelled
2021-06-19 02:52.12.520		Flow ELSE Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB Gecancelled
2021-06-19 03:59.02.411		Flow ELSE Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB Gecancelled
2021-06-19 04:02.22.232		Flow ELSE Peter Beacon_8erdeur thuis J/N: true 
2021-06-19 04:20.37.626		Flow Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB 
2021-06-19 04:50.01.189		Flow ELSE Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB Gecancelled
2021-06-19 06:48.43.677		Flow ELSE Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB Gecancelled
2021-06-19 06:56.03.147		Flow ELSE Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB Gecancelled
2021-06-19 07:21.06.457		Flow ELSE Peter Beacon_8erdeur thuis J/N: true  
2021-06-19 12:05.06.109		Flow ELSE Peter Beacon_8erdeur thuis J/N: true 
2021-06-19 12:54.34.157		Flow Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB 
2021-06-19 12:54.43.390		Flow ELSE Peter Beacon_8erdeur thuis J/N: false 
2021-06-19 12:57.11.486		Flow ELSE Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB Gecancelled
2021-06-19 16:04.14.300		Flow ELSE Peter Away > beacon v Pe_auto 689E Gecancelled
2021-06-19 20:11.47.988		Flow ELSE Peter Beacon_8erdeur thuis J/N: true 
2021-06-19 20:15.07.240		Flow Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB 
2021-06-19 20:57.50.186		Flow Gast Beacon thuis J/N: false 
2021-06-19 20:58.10.256		Flow ELSE Gast Beacon thuis J/N: true 
2021-06-19 21:30.35.613		Flow Gast Beacon thuis J/N: false 
2021-06-19 21:30.55.306		Flow ELSE Gast Beacon thuis J/N: true 
2021-06-19 23:32.52.633		Flow ELSE Peter Beacon_8erdeur thuis J/N: true  
2021-06-19 23:54.24.401		Flow ELSE Peter Beacon_8erdeur thuis J/N: false 
2021-06-19 23:55.33.533		Flow ELSE Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB Gecancelled
2021-06-19 23:55.34.569		Flow ELSE Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB Gecancelled
2021-06-19 23:55.36.223		Flow Lief Beacon thuis J/N: false 
2021-06-19 23:55.58.847		Flow ELSE Lief Beacon thuis J/N:  true 
2021-06-20 00:24.29.168		Flow ELSE Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB Gecancelled
2021-06-20 00:44.09.731		Flow ELSE Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB Gecancelled
2021-06-20 01:06.28.969		Flow ELSE Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB Gecancelled
2021-06-20 01:10.35.276		Flow ELSE Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB Gecancelled
2021-06-20 03:44.03.838		Flow ELSE Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB Gecancelled
2021-06-20 06:34.22.111		Flow ELSE Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB Gecancelled
2021-06-20 08:41.11.090		Flow ELSE Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB Gecancelled]
2021-06-20 12:02.03.799		Flow ELSE Peter Away > beacon v Pe_8erdeur 1DAB Gecancelled

From the BLE overview, you can see the most often flipping beacon’s (1DAB) signal is below -65db.
I’ll move them a meter closer to Homey and see what happens.

To put signal strength in perspective:
A Flowerpin, polled once an hour, works fine, with a signal of -89db.

I do not have any false report or flipping beacons anymore for weeks now.

Homey 7.0
Beacon app 1.3.1
And Aliexpress beacon tags

What settings do you use?

5.5.1.15