Recommendation wanted for minimal iphone geo-fencing...

[greazer]

I'm trying to setup a geofencing solution using my iPhone. I've been mildly successful with IFTTT and Stringify, but neither seem to work as consistently as I'd like. Are there any recommended iPhone apps that monitor your location via GPS and can simply do a restful call from the phone directly to the ISY portal? I *think* both IFTTT and Stringify rely on communicating with THEIR servers before sending out a command to the ISY portal -- which introduces just one more point of failure.

I've considered creating the app myself, but I would think it already exists. I've tried looking, but have been unsuccessful finding one. 

[paulbates]

If you use V5 firmware, you can skip the 3rd parties like IFTTT and Stringify and use UDI's occupancy node. Even though they discontinued their dedicated web service, the Locative app remains available and works well for me. You can match that with the ISY Portal's Occupancy Node Server that is hosted in the portal itself.  I'm still using version 1 of the ISY Portal's Occupancy Node. For that, when you set up a  named zone in the portal, you can click the little blue arrow next to it and that will show you the https link needed to past into locative. You do need to be on V5 of ISY to use this, I think. It adds the node to the ISY. See screen shots below.

Version 2 of the ISY Portal Occupancy Node Server came out recently but I haven't set it up yet. UDI recently created a specific app for this for android for V2 Occupancy node and I think I saw a post that said there would an ios one, but I don't know about either one or when ios would be coming. Locative is a little clunky to set up first time as you have to get those links on to your phone to paste them into locative. I opened the portal in safari.

Paul

[rccoleman]

I do exactly what paulbates does - Locative + portal occupancy node. Works great.

[greazer]

Excellent! Thanks for the info! I'll give it a try.

[Scottmichaelj]

11 hours ago, paulbates said:

If you use V5 firmware, you can skip the 3rd parties like IFTTT and Stringify and use UDI's occupancy node. Even though they discontinued their dedicated web service, the Locative app remains available and works well for me. You can match that with the ISY Portal's Occupancy Node Server that is hosted in the portal itself.  I'm still using version 1 of the ISY Portal's Occupancy Node. For that, when you set up a  named zone in the portal, you can click the little blue arrow next to it and that will show you the https link needed to past into locative. You do need to be on V5 of ISY to use this, I think. It adds the node to the ISY. See screen shots below.

Version 2 of the ISY Portal Occupancy Node Server came out recently but I haven't set it up yet. UDI recently created a specific app for this for android for V2 Occupancy node and I think I saw a post that said there would an ios one, but I don't know about either one or when ios would be coming. Locative is a little clunky to set up first time as you have to get those links on to your phone to paste them into locative. I opened the portal in safari.

Paul

I tried to do this and I see everything in my ISYas expected from the wiki, however when I hit the test button on my iPhone I don't see the status change in the ISY nor do I get a fail or succeed notification on the iPhones. Tried on two different iPhones, the ISY shows "false" still when doing a query. Guess I will have to try when I leave to see if it actually works.

https://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=ISY_Portal_Node_Server_Occupancy_and_Locative_app_Instructions

[paulbates]

56 minutes ago, Scottmichaelj said:

I tried to do this and I see everything in my ISYas expected from the wiki, however when I hit the test button on my iPhone I don't see the status change in the ISY nor do I get a fail or succeed notification on the iPhones. Tried on two different iPhones, the ISY shows "false" still when doing a query. Guess I will have to try when I leave to see if it actually works.

https://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=ISY_Portal_Node_Server_Occupancy_and_Locative_app_Instructions

Its been a while since I set this up, had to look at my phone. Also, I never did the Global http server so I guess I never did test, I just started using it.

Not sure how big the radius is for yours, you may want walk / drive well out of the area and come back to get the app to respond to the GPS.

[paulbates]

You can copy the text out of locative and paste it in safari to test too. I just tried that and could flip it back and forth manually

[Scottmichaelj]

You can copy the text out of locative and paste it in safari to test too. I just tried that and could flip it back and forth manually

 Didn’t work in safari, just brings up a blank page. No errors. Copied the link from within Safari in the iPhone too. No notifications from Locative. MobiLinc is working fine with the ISY portal and I can control my lights on WiFi and LTE. Strange eh?  Edit: OK the ISY Portal was showing me out. I sent the copied “in” link via Safari as suggested, refreshed the ISY portal webpage and it’s now showing me “in” and “in” on my ISY. Not sure what’s going on, still zero notifications from Locative though. I’ll play around and test more. MobiLinc geofence stopped working for me when I switched to the ISY portal and I would like to have this work again. So nice to leave and the arm system arm and disarm when you get home.

[paulbates]

My safari copy/paste of the link comes back blank too. Its a web service so that's normal.  I never see anything on locative when its working. I may have shut notifications off.

I'm wondering if the ISY needs to be rebooted as technically a nodeserver was added? I don't remember having to reboot, but don't remember for sure.  I don't see how mobilinc would matter here, its strictly an ISY portal to to ISY relationship. I my radius @ several hundred yards, give the cell service etc, time to get the message. 

It was really good to get off of IFTTT

Paul

[greazer]

Seems others are experiencing what I'm experiencing. I seem to not be able to get any notifications from locative at all (let alone making a web-request from it). I'm wondering if it's even working anymore. Since GPS mapping apps are able to basically know where you're at in close to realtime, I don't see why locative shouldn't be able to fire a notification within a couple seconds after leaving or entering a geofence. No?

 

[paulbates]

Yes, it should fire relatively quickly. GPS is declared to be accurate within 5 meters. I use my last iphone as a trail GPS frequently, and pictures of the same thing can have a location that fluctuates 30 feet. I think vertical angle to the satellite matters. It should easily detect and send its message within 10 seconds I would guess, worst case. The point is when testing, be sure to go 50 yards past the boundary you set up before turning around to come back. 

The app continues to work for me... and I'm using the latest version available on ios. Its like using an older copy of MS office.. it wont get better in any way, but it will continue to function the same for some time.  The only risk I see is that its not being updated, and at some future point (years?) an ios upgrade will include/change something that requires developer changes. This app uses simple GPS and webservice calls,  I think that will be a while.

Edit: I went back and looked at locative settings. I was sure I had notifications turned off; I don't want them and I don't see them. However, they are turned back on in the app settings, but I don't ever see them. Web services call to the ISY Portal are definitely working every time. It makes sense that the notification and its success or failure would be based on a service... the locative web service that has since been shut down. Notifications can't be provided by the app any longer. That doesn't matter, the app can still detect where it is, and send web services call to the ISY Portal.

I use mine to turn on my back driveway lights when I drive in and its continued to work. How big is the radius set? I set the radius at a few hundred yards so the message can make it from att through the ISY portal to our home network. Here is my event log for my phone for the last few days using locative. (The last one is 0/away as a I tested the locative link with safari, and had to set it as away to see it change in the ISY)

I do know that to test it initially, I had to walk/drive out past the boundary and then come back. Others are using this (including rcolman, post above). If rebooting the ISY didn't help, I'd turn in a ticket.

 

[Scottmichaelj]

If notifications are important you can use Pushover with ISY. Then when you leave IF Locative changes as expected then just use Pushover to notify you via a program. Or you can use one of the other notification services.

I recently reduced the amount of notifications on my devices because I seemed to get flooded with them. Now I only important things like my alarm being armed and disarmed when I leave. I even set that notification to a special tone so I don’t even need to look at the phone.

[paulbates]

That's where I'm at. I don't need a notification from locative. I use pushover and its "apps" (folders) to organize notifications. In this case I should know that I'm in or out of an area.. I want the ISY to act accordingly

I use notifications for key events or errors. I'll sometimes have more when I'm writing new programs and need to debug.. so its easier to figure out what happened when. But when things are working, i get rid of them

[Scottmichaelj]

So I finally left the house and everything worked as smooth as butta. However no notifications were received from Locative, BUT maybe that’s bc they shut their servers down which also stopped notifications? Not a issue, Pushover worked as expected through the ISY Portal. Not sure why geofencing with MobiLinc via variables stopped working, however this solution works perfectly. I asked to be a beta tester for the new MobiLinc and MobiLinc Connect so we will see if it resolves things. I want to do a side by side comparison of features vs price for MobiLinc Connect and the ISY Portal.