Geofencing issues

Questions & Help
1

This week I’ve noticed that the geofencing option is not working correctly at the moment. I’m not quite sure if this is a Homey problem or a iOS problem.

Problem descrption
I’ve set a Homey Flow to turn on the lights when my wife or I will arrive at home, no matter what time it is after sunset. This has been working very well, untill now.

In the Homey Timeline I can see that my wife and I are at home in the evening. When we go to sleep, we turn off the light manually (via a Heat-it Zwave controller). The following morning I see that the lights are (still) turned on. When I look into the timeline, I can see that my wife has no presence at home for a few seconds. The Homey sees this as a homecoming, and will therefore turn on the lights.

First I thought this might be a problem of my wife’s phone. But last night I had the same issue, due to the geofencing option on my phone. As you can see in the screenshot (sorry, it’s in Dutch), we’ve been ‘away’ for only a few seconds.

IMG_3111.PNG
IMG_3111.PNG1125×2436 569 KB

Problem solution
It’s not necessary to leave the lights on just for the cat, so I want to solve this problem. Possibly this is a problem regarding the Homey software or iOS. But I don’t want to be dependent on these platforms (at least regarding this problem).

Is there an option to check what the time is between homeleaving and homecoming? In that way we can just check if the time between those actions was more than 60 minutes for example. I did a quick search for an solution like this, but I couldn’t find anything useful.

Deeper problem solution
Sometimes we see that it’s not ‘homeleaving’ and a few seconds later ‘homecoming’. In that case it appears that the Homey platofrm doesn’t register a homecoming at all (see as well the screenshot). I see this as another issue, but still the geofencing issue.

Does anyone has the same issues?
Could anyone help me solving this issue?

Thanks,
Niels

2

Are you using the Geofency Inbuild option?
If so, then there is probably no way around using another method.
The Homey Inbuild solution is inaccurate and causes problems for almost all users.
Just search for „Presence“.

3

No no @DirkG, if it’s IOS then search for locative!!

4

:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Yes and no.

Other methods are also possible like Wifi or Beacon.

Instead of Locative I use “Geofency” and it works fine (unless I am in a dead zone… :wink:).

5

Thanks!

Hmm, ok! So the native Homey geofencing feature is inaccurate?
I’d prefer not to use all kind of different apps on my phone to measure things like the location. Isn’t there another solution? Like the one I suggested (based on time between homeleaving and homecoming)?

6

Life360 works flawlessly on either iOs and Android… :wink:
Homey’s inbuild geofencing is terrible.

7

Yes.

If the presence is detected via Wi-Fi or a beacon, you don’t need another app on iPhone. But the beacon method is not 100% secure either, I use a beacon as additional security.

I do not understand exactly what you want to achieve with your scenario described above? If the localisation does not work, then the necessary flow is not triggered.

One of the problems seems to be that sometimes the locating switches to “absent” for a short time and then back to “present”, right?
You could create a flow with a timer for that.

Flow 1
If…
A certain person “Niels” has left
Then…
Start a timer “Niels is gone” with 60 seconds (for example)

Flow 2
If…
Timer “Niels is gone” has expired
And…
A certain person “Niels” is not at home
Then…
Mark “Niels” as gone