Ive been trying for ages now to have an stable and reliable geo fence or location trigger for me and my family. Home built in works nice but only for me, even if all other family members have the app installed and settings correct. (ive been trying it out with push notification to me and its not reliable at all) We all use Iphones so i guess that iphone eventually cuts gps sharing if the app isent use frequently i.e run in the background or even closed.
So, this led me to the app “smart presence” which uses local wifi to detect if who is home or not, this works, but has limited reach (wifi covered) and isent as quik as i need. i.e turning on lights on arrival and opening garage doors etc.
So, latly ive startet to look towards “owntracks”, ive been testing this on my own location for a while and its super stabile and i really like the possiblity and costumate the different geo-fences. BUT, currently ive been strugling to sett it up at other family members phones since the UI is that good. Ill post this in the correct forum but i can explain the problem here aswell. I cant find the http section in the app so i cant use the http tutorial?
Anyhow, does anybody else relate to my problems? And have u found any other relible way or app to track presence?
I have no problems with 2 iPhones in the household. But I also always tell my wife not to close the Homey app completely. I do not know if she follows this and if this could possibly be a problem.
You can use Apples Shortcut app and start favorite flows of Homey (person x coming home / person x leaving home), or use WebHooks to start flows. Because the whole thing is handled within the “Apple Universe” and no additional red party apps are needed on the iPhones, it is a very reliable method, as long as Homey has an active internet connection. But Homey has to have that for all other methods as well, except for the WLAN apps. Here you can find a tutorial about the Shortcut app. But they use a HTTP-Request instead of a WebHook.
I guess that the variant with the WebHooks has already been explained in the forum as well. If you don’t find anything and are interested in it, then let me know.
I don’t use the app myself, but I have read that the Connect Life360 app is also very reliable.
With both methods you can also track multiple locations.
I use presence detection of Apple HomeKit. A virtual switch for every family member exposed to HomeKit using HomeKit/HomeKitty app. Switch on/off with automation in HomeKit when person leaves/arrives. Works almost without problems for years now.
@vzsolti
1: you need apple HomeKit installation with a home hub (apple tv of HomePod) and for every person you want to sync the presence an iPhone with presence detection synced to the apple home app.
2: you need to install the homey HomeKit experiment or HomeKitty app on homey
3: you need to install the virtual devices experiment or virtual devices app on homey
4: create a virtual switch (with app from step 3) for every person you want to sync the presence and expose these to HomeKit (via app from step 2). Or create one switch for anyone at home.
5: in apple home app define an automation per person: if person left home:Switch the device from step 4 off. If person came home: switch the device from step 4 to on.
6 : in homey define the automations etcetera based on this virtual switch
Let me know on which step you need some more help.
