Only sent a push to a user at home or prevent sending a text when I'm not at home

I am struggling with push notifications. Mainly in two situations.

  1. I want only a push notification when going from home when also there is nobody there. So if there is still someone at home, I should not get one. Like a notification that I forgot to close the balcony door. It isn’t needed if there is some one at home. If that person leaves he/she should get that notification only. Because I am already far gone.

  2. I want only a push notification when I at home. Jut the other way around. When the laundry is done, someone not at home shouldn’t get this one.

I tried to use
WHEN specific person A is leaving
AND now one is at home
THEN notify that the balcony is still open

But while leaving home, that seems a state when I still are at home because the AND part is not true. Which is weird.

There should be a way to configure this right?

Did u try this without the AND part?
Because when the last person leaves, there should be no one at home anyway?

I’ve wrote it all wrong, I should say: a specific person leaves, A.

Homey doesn’t store the last person as a tag which then can be used to address a push notification to.

This would indeed work. But that creates a lot of flows. Or at least it’s more difficult to manage. I think this would work too, right?

WHEN
Person A is leaving
AND
Person B is not at home
Person C is not at home
THEN
Send notification to A

Well, three persons. So to create flows ‘your’ way, it would be 2 flows per person for leaving. I thought the combined one is simpler.

Well, I may seem lazy (and I sometimes am) but with three people it’s quite hard testing: okay now, could yo walk a mile to test if you receive a notification? But I do not need to go anywhere. Well just do it :wink:
So I though, maybe you could say: doesn’t work, might work or works :angel:

Homey does not care about the number of flows.
I am a big fan of “more flows”, you can read why in my post “how to structure your flows”.

More flows makes it easier to understand and less chance on entanglements…

2 Likes

Kill WiFi would suffice?

@FKey, I am not a fan of creating numerous flows, especially when it’s not needed.
@RoyWissenburg I am not asking you to test it, that’s your interpertation. I am just asking for a theoretical proofing. Sometimes an other eye can spot a flaw easier than myself.

I have 3 logic variabele for sending notifications. 1 is notifyHomeUser. Is this is changed en not changed to ‘empty’, 2 flows start running. 1 that checks if I’m home and the other one checks if my wife is home. Of I’m home, I receive the notification and the same for my wife.
2 is notifyAlways; which sends a notification to the both of us
3 is NotifyNobodyHome which notifies is when nobody is home.

The usecase for sending a notification to the person that is leaving the house seams iseless to me :slight_smile:

I am not sure if I understand your variables and flows.

Why would that be useless? There a several use case for this.

  1. If somebody leaves the house and no one is there and they forget something, like lights, heating or open doors: notification. It’s useless to send this notification if someone else is at home or isn’t.
  2. When the laundry is finished and someone isn’t home, it is unnecessary to inform that person. (Unless both are away, and they come home, but that is way to advanced for Homey).

Yes, thats my point. I have different variables that do different things. 1 for persen that sends notification to a persen thats home.
Another one that sends notification to all users when nobody is home. For example. The front door opens

Hey guys,
first of all I would like to wish you all a happy and especially healthy New Year!

I’m a Homey-User for about half a year now, and tried different things with this astonishing, versatile SmartHome-Gateway. It’s quite amazing to see the different possibilities and therefore its high potential. Nevertheless, there are some issues, which I already experienced out and with which I’m a little bit confused.

During the first time, I got in contact regularly with Athom’s support, until I got to know about this huge Homey community platform. That’s great, and after searching it for the best fitting topic, I think this fits best.

So, I’ve got to issues:

  1. I want to set up a alarm, which is activated, when our terrace door will be opened while we are respectively I’m absent. This is way I created an actualy simple work-flow as follows:


    But obviously right, it don’t function at all. Well, to be honest, the main trigger isn’t the leaving person, but the opened terrace door. According to the logical order of the incidents, nevertheless it should work. Could somebody please tell me, why it don’t? What are your experience with the flow cards about presence?
    I found out, that when the door sensor is used as the first flow card (WHEN), and the presence is the second (AND; but the only option then is “nobody is at home”), the flow will work.
    But that’s not satisfying me, because my wife isn’t actualizing her presence status either. So, she’s always officially registered as “absent” in Homey, and I’m the only one who changes it’s status regularly. And I miss the logic of Homey anyway.

  2. The consequence of this work-flow (THEN) is, that a push-notification should be sent to my wife and me. Though, it requires that our mobile phones are connected with the internet at this time a notification is sent from Homey. It’s not sufficient, to be online after several minutes, because the notifications aren’t stored in Homey’s cache so far. I mean, what about a bad/broken internet connection at this moment, a notification is established by Homey? I won’t receive it at all! Instead of any notifications of my weather or Google Play-App in case of updates for example. What’s your experience about push-notifications and their delays?

Glad to read from you. Thanks so much in advance!!

No, it is not logical.
The actions in the “If…” area are only triggers. Triggers probably last only a few milliseconds. This means that the flow is started only when there is a change. In your case when your presence is changed from present to absent.

You have already found out how it works. The trigger is the change of state of the door/window sensor in combination with the presence state.
If your wife does not use the presence function, there will probably be no way to fulfill your wish. How should it work?

If I understand you correctly, you switch manually between present/absent, right?
I wouldn’t want to do that either, by the way.
The presence status can be automated or significantly simplified via smartphone and geofencing, via logging on/off in the home WLAN, via beacon or by means of a simple button on the apartment door.

Hey Dirk,

thank you very much for your very quick reply as well as for your helpful advices.
Just to ensure that I understand you right: Do you mean, that the flow is only started, when both or even more conditions, which are made under both WHEN and AND are fulfilled at the same time?
Wow, that’s something what I completely unexpected at all! So far, I just thought, it’s sufficient, that both conditions are met at any time, not at (exactly) the same time

Though my first post was (honestly ;-)) quite detailed, one point is still left: accordingly to the fact, that she uses the Homey App very rarely, my wife is always registered as absent. Apart from that, the first condition is independent of this anyway. It’s only about my presence, even if it only works, when the door sensor is triggered at the same moment, my status is changed. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?

In the last time, I switched my status over the app, but normally I use a key fob.
The automating status via geofencing (GPS hardly available indoors) or better with logging on/off in WLAN could be a quite comfortable advantage in future, although battery demanding.

Yes, where the condition for WHEN is only a very short moment, a trigger, e.g. the moment when you leave your geofence area (switching from inside to outside), or at sunrise/sunset (this is also only a short moment), or when switching a variable from “Yes” to “No” (also only a short moment).
In addition, the conditions at AND must also be fulfilled in this short moment. But the conditions at AND are more or less static states, no actual changes, like “between 07:00 - 10:00 o’clock” or the contact-alarm of the door/window sensor is on or off (not the same as the change between on or off!). The change between on or off of the alarm of the door/window sensor is a trigger and belongs to the WHEN area.

Yes and No. If you want to activate the alarm system via the door contact (so if your wife is the last person leaving the house), then you must already be absent (static condition).

When…
– The contact alarm has is activated (this is not comparable to “the contact alarm is on”!).
And…
– Albert Gärtner is not at home (static condition)
Then…
– Activate the alarm with a delay of x s/min

But the problem is when your wife comes home again and you are not there yet.
This means that the door contact is activated while the alarm system is still active. Homey cannot know without any information (absence/presence) if your wife or possibly an burglar opens the door.
One possibility would be to remove the door contact from the monitoring of the alarm system. But that would make the point of home monitoring pointless.

This function works with zones. If you are within a radius of 250 m (adjustable, but below 250 m is not recommended) from your home, then you will be marked as present. If you leave this area (i.e. if you are further than 250 m from your home), you will be marked as absent. So there is no need to have GPS signal in the house.

Depending on the quality of the WLAN and the used hardware, there may be delays in the detection, which should be taken into account in relevant automations.

From my experience, battery consumption is irrelevant with both methods (iOS).

Hey Dirk, thanks so much again for these very detailed as well as very helpful advices. That’s very kind of you and something for what this outstanding community stands for: to support each other!

To avoid that this thread becomes confused or too long, just let me summarize:
The main aspects of distinguishing the conditions, because of which a flow is started, are as follows:

WHEN: it’s mostly a change of a variable, a sensor (like a door/window sensor), an actor (like a push of a button of a key-fob, a switch on/off) or something like that. Exactly not a static value like a status on/off, a certain temperature, time etc.

AND: here has to put in all static values of a variable, a sensor (e.g. an opened door, window, a certain temperature), an actor (on or off, a certain button)
Examples for static values

According to that, the above mentioned flow (see screenshot Einbruchalarmierung) is activated (but not started yet!) as soon as nobody’s at home. To fulfill this second condition, which is set under AND, I just press a certain key of the key-fob or change the status of my presence/absence via the Homey app.
While my wife’s status is always absent, after the change of my status nobody’s at home anymore.

Because it’s our terrace, not the front door actually, the alarm isn’t set off as soon as my wife enters the house. Due to this, she is able to inactivate the alarm system either with the key-fob or via the app (to change my or still her presence status) as well as I activated it when I left the home before. Because of this, Homey knows that an authorized person is present, and not an invader.

But, however, if it will be so at anyday: what about the push-notifications and their delay? Does anybody have some experiences on that?

This is not exactly true. The flow is started (not activated) as soon as your status changes from “at home” to “has left”. But the flow does not run to the end, because the contact alarm is not active at this moment (change between “at home” and “has left”).

Difference between “starting” a flow and “activating” a flow:
Starting a flow: The flow is triggered (something has changed). If the action(s) in the “Then…” or “Else…” area is/are triggered depends on the conditions in the “And…” area, if conditions exist.
Activating a flow: The flow is switched on because it was previously deactivated/switched off.

Could you please post your flow?

I still can’t help with the push message question. However, I would also be interested in a solution.

Thanks so much once again for your very exact answer, Dirk. After some quite busy days ago, I finally get to answer now…

Yes, you’re right (what for a lovely function here to quote sth. :blush:): of course, the flow is started, as soon as the AND-condition is fulfilled, but the flow isn’t running yet, unless the WHEN-condition occurs, i.e. the door alarm is active. This is what I originally ment. :innocent:

No problem, here are my flow as wanted:

To start the flow

and the flow itself (I hope it’s well to see because of the picture size :thinking:)

a alternative possibility to activate as well as to start a flow. To get the flow started with that, the AND-condition has to be deleted first.