I am using Ubiquity UniFi for presence detection. It works flawlessly. A requirement for this is to have UniFi access points and a UniFi controller.
Next to home/away detection, I am also using it for detecting sleep. If a phone is connected to the access point on the first floor and you turn off the light of the bedroom within a time range, then that person is marked as sleeping. The next morning, when your phone roams from the first floor to the ground floor, you are marked as awake and you are greeted by Homey with a summary of the day and the minimum temperature of last night.
Usually this app is also fast enough to turn off the alarm system when you get home before the alarm goes off.
I had bought a Ubiquity UAP-AC-Lite a year ago and tried to get this working. After a lot of hours found out that i needed antother device to get it working. I did not have the cloud key and as this was another 90 euros ti invest. so i chose another option a that time. Also i was not sure again that this would work with the Huawei phones that we have at home. Can you tell me wich phones you are using?
I am using Ubiquity UniFi NanoHD access points and a 24 ports UniFi managed switch with PoE (Power over Ethernet) to power the access points. The switch is not required since you can also power the access points with a power injector for the ethernet cable.
For the UniFi system to work, you need a UniFi controller indeed. For that, you have multiple options. You can buy a UniFi cloud key, which runs the controller software on a piece of hardware that you buy. You can also run the controller software on a normal Windows/Linux pc or on a Synology NAS. You can even run it in the cloud if you want. I am running the controller software on a Windows 10 Intel NUC that I use as a media pc, which is always on anyway. This controller software is used to manage all the settings, to optimize the network and to monitor client connections. It has an api and that is what Homey can connect to.
Overall, this UniFi network is the best I ever had. I used Asus routers as access points in the past, but this is much more stable.
A previously tried other presence apps that worked with wifi. Every other time the phone puts the wifi into a sleeping mode and therfore Disconnects from homey. In this case that would be disconnecting from the ubicuiti asses point. You never had this experience?
I have never had that problem. We are using Sony Android phones and an iPhone. None of them disconnects when you turn the screen off. Wifi always stays connected as long as it is within range. Actually, even my Windows 10 laptops stay connected in stand-by, but I do not use them for Homey.
The only thing I sometimes experience, is that it takes up to a minute before my phone connects to wifi when I arrive home. If your phone is on stand-by, it does not constantly search for wifi, probably to save battery. When you turn on the screen, it connects immediately.
When your phone loses wifi for a minute or so, UniFi does not directly report the client as disconnected. If you explicitly turn off wifi, you are seen as disconnected, but if you go out of range, it waits a bit before it reports the client as disconnected. This is probably also to save energy, otherwise devices would have to talk to the access point constantly to let it know they are still there.
i would love to know i there’s anyone here on the forum that has a combination of the unify app with a huawei p10 lite or the huawei mate 20 pro before i decide to buy a controller and spend a 90 euro’s.
thanks guys for the reply, what i don’t get out of your answers if you both have used the ubiquiti variant? I already bought it yesterday so lets see how it works. Hope its not for nothing again
Well I tried it after having bought the cloud key for 99 euro’s. And again useless. When we are inside the house for 5 minutes it sees the phone. That’s way to late. Heimdall already has set the alarm on. Making a delay in heimdall for 5 minutes makes the alarm useless so that’s not an option. Back to the virtual button again. Automatic pressence detection is not going to work overhere. Life 360 I already tried. Did not work also
Heave you tried Macrodroid? It works realy great, i use it now for half a year en dit the job every time… It’s verry importend that you turn off every powersave setting for the macrodroid app otherwise the app goos into sleep when the screen of your phone is off.
well just downloaded the Macrodroid app. Seems as i am on EMUI 9+ that i have installed PowerGenie on my huawei p20 pro wich you cannot customise. So you have to uninstall this system app. For this you need to install a android debug bridge on your pc. i have to do this on 2 phones the other one you can change the settings. So i think you will understand i aint gonna mess with my android 9.1 system. So again not a working option.
