ISY Portal Geo-Fence Help

[MWareman]

I have been trying to use the tasker approach that is outlined in the wiki.  I can get the at-home to work to set a variable in the ISY, but the away from home can not seem to communicate with the ISY.  I have tried all manner of this, but keep getting an error message in Tasker for a socket error that the connection was refused.  If have tried to connect both via the portal (which I can use for Alexa) and directly.  Any suggestions on this?
 
Don

In my Tasker tasks, I put a label before the http step - and test after the step for a successful connection. If not, I jump back to the label after a 1 second delay (to prevent a tight loop). I usually include a counter as well - so it does not loop forever - and can at least pop up an error if the connection is still bad after several attempts.

[DonM]

I have installed the UDI Mobile app from the Play store - the one that was an earlier release - last night.  It seems to be working, but I have not left the house yet today.  If this solves the problem, as indicated in another forum thread, the Tasker issue will be moot.

But, thanks for the tips - I may go ahead and try these to increase my knowledge regarding Tasker.  Tasker seems like it may be useful for as yet undiscovered tasks.

 

Don

[apostolakisl]

2 hours ago, DonM said:

I have installed the UDI Mobile app from the Play store - the one that was an earlier release - last night.  It seems to be working, but I have not left the house yet today.  If this solves the problem, as indicated in another forum thread, the Tasker issue will be moot.

But, thanks for the tips - I may go ahead and try these to increase my knowledge regarding Tasker.  Tasker seems like it may be useful for as yet undiscovered tasks.

 

Don

Two problems with this.

1) At least on my phone, the app goes to sleep.  It does not update the geo fence unless you open the app, except every once in a while seemingly at random hours after I had already entered the geofence.  This is despite me giving it every permission I could find that might undo limits on its background wakes/batter usage.

2) There is a good reason that Android might want to shut it down.  GPS geo-fencing is battery intensive.  

Tasker plus wifi status is nearly a zero battery kill.  It is also extremely quick and accurate.  If you want to keep your GPS drainage down, you need to limit it to say every 5 or 10 minutes (if it works at all, which in my case it does not).  Even at that, the phone will continue check every x minutes 100% of the time.  Going on a vacatoin?  You'll get a gps check every x minutes even if you are 1000 miles away.  Using Tasker only requires that you keep your wifi on.  Which for most people is standard.  Of course it also depends that at all geo-fenced locations, you have wifi.

[rccoleman]

If it works like other geofence apps, which are based on the OS location service, it uses cell geolocation to get a rough approximation and to see if GPS is necessary for a more granular result. I use location-based reminders and Locative on my iPhone every day and it doesn’t meaningfully affect my battery life.

[DonM]

2 hours ago, apostolakisl said:

Two problems with this.

1) At least on my phone, the app goes to sleep.  It does not update the geo fence unless you open the app, except every once in a while seemingly at random hours after I had already entered the geofence.  This is despite me giving it every permission I could find that might undo limits on its background wakes/batter usage.

2) There is a good reason that Android might want to shut it down.  GPS geo-fencing is battery intensive.  

Tasker plus wifi status is nearly a zero battery kill.  It is also extremely quick and accurate.  If you want to keep your GPS drainage down, you need to limit it to say every 5 or 10 minutes (if it works at all, which in my case it does not).  Even at that, the phone will continue check every x minutes 100% of the time.  Going on a vacatoin?  You'll get a gps check every x minutes even if you are 1000 miles away.  Using Tasker only requires that you keep your wifi on.  Which for most people is standard.  Of course it also depends that at all geo-fenced locations, you have wifi.

I did get the Tasker to work using your ideas.  I think I will be using Tasker.

Don