Not quite there with UDI Moble

[Chevelle]

I am very new to all of this (just two days) but have gotten very far along after ditching the Insteon hub.  I am thrilled with all the options I know have.

Probably more by accident than by skill, I managed to install UDI Mobile on my phone and set up a GeoFence for my home.  I also manged to connect it to ISY via the portal node server and Occupancy v2.0 (with UDI mobile).

My presence (Android phone) shows up in ISY and have written a few simple programs that use this information.  My questions are:

Do I understand the settings in the app correctly?  The phone pushes my status (in or out of the GeoFence) at intervals set in the app, like 15 minutes and that it will not report distance changes less than 100m?

And reducing these settings reduces battery life?

I guess I figured this app would work differently.  The phone always know where it is and since it also know where the GeoFence is, why doesn't it just report when the GeoFence is crossed, once in and once out?

Or am I thinking about this all wrong.  Should I be using a different app to setup my GeoFence and report to ISY when I have crossed into or out of it?

Thanks.

[TexMike]

I think this is a dead app, see 

Michel said they were looking at a replacement, but no news since.

You may also be interested in 

 

 

[Chevelle]

Well then, this is really bizarre.  I spent a good part of the afternoon setting up a program that was supposed to detect when I crossed into the GeoFence.  When that happened, it was supposed to enable and run a program to turn on the driveway flood lights for 5 minutes and then turn them off but only between sunset and sunrise.  I got it all set up and only tested it by manually setting the state of my occupancy on and off.  I never tested it by actually crossing the GeoFence.

I had to run an errand and when I while I was gone, sunset occurred.  As I drove up to the driveway, lo and behold, the lights when on!  So for an ap that doesn't work, it worked pretty well.  Better than I thought it would especially because of the settings issues I mentioned above.

I checked the links you attached.  No clear solution.  I can't imagine that there isn't something being used that is reliable.  What about the location service in IFTTT.  (I haven't done any IFTTT stuff yet.)

[Mecheng70]

Check out Tasker if you are using Android.  I use it to set the occupancy to in or out.  Tasker IMHO does a better and more reliable handling of geofencing.  IFTTT was becoming less stable and now triggering half the time.

There is a tutorial on the wiki for both IFTTT and Tasker.

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

Tasker - https://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=ISY-99i_Series_INSTEON:Networking:Tasker

[TexMike]

There seems to be a lot of variability in results for Android. I gave up and just used WiFi presence detection. Locative geofence works well on the kids iPhones. Looking back I should have done testing with my wife's Pixel 3, it may have just been issues with my older Moto X4.

[Chevelle]

Talk about fast paced learning!  It had only been a few days and I am into this big time.  It is like some kind of addiction.  A soon as I implement one capability it's, "OK.  What's next!"  All that is missing is a sinister laugh along with the wringing of hands.

Anyway, I moved away from UDI Mobile and now do it with IFTTT and Webhooks.  It took a while for things to settle down as I tweaked but it looks like everything is working as it should.  I found that it was important to have a relatively large GeoFence to have everything work reliably.  (In my case, the radius is about 1/4 mile.)

Now, my garage doors close after I have left the area if I forget to close them before I leave (although with all this effort, I will probably never forget again) and the floodlights come on in the driveway when I enter the area if it is between sunset and sunrise.

Cool stuff.  Gotta go now.  The Raspberry Pi just arrived to be used for PolyGlot  (MmuuuuAhhhhaaaa)

[Mecheng70]

Look at tasker.  I like that a while lot more.  

So much, that one day while programming my phone, I got on the wrong BART and ended up in Dublin, CA before I realized.  ? (Had headphones on)

[asbril]

2 minutes ago, Chevelle said:

t is like some kind of addiction. 

?

[Chevelle]

There is a saying in the radio controlled model airplane community..

"I'm not addicted to flying RC.  I can stop any time I want to....  I just don't want to."

I think it applies to home automation as well.

[larryllix]

Now we have HAA, as well as AAA, CAA, and AA.  

[Chevelle]

With all these meetings, I won't have any time to be addicted any more!

[jtara92101]

Is there currently anything else that works with Occupancy 2.0?

I gather that UDI Mobile has the single purpose of implementing the geofencing on your phone in order to provide one of the inputs to Occupancy 2.0?

Was it ever released for iOS? I can't find it, but I see the Android product.

Are there other geofencing apps that work with Occupancy 2.0? I'm thinking like some 3rd party app of more general purpose, such as a full remote for ISY?

So, basically, this is similar to Locative but talks directly to Occupancy 2.0?

From discussion I have seen, there are issues with high background usage, and perhaps no iOS app at all?

Sorry for all the clueless questions. I might be able to throw this together quickly if there is interest. I might want to charge a few bucks for the app for my trouble. I'd imagine it's a small market, but willing to give it a shot.

There is no reason that geofencing needs to have an app run in background on either iOS or Android. The app gets notifications from the system, and briefly "wakes up" when criteria are met. "listening" for the fence boundaries is managed centrally by each of iOS and Android's central geolocation code.

On 2/16/2020 at 1:36 PM, Chevelle said:

I guess I figured this app would work differently.  The phone always know where it is and since it also know where the GeoFence is, why doesn't it just report when the GeoFence is crossed, once in and once out?

Exactly. That's how it is SUPPOSED to work.

I've done this before. I wrote a little taximeter app a few years ago that I never released. Now... no taxis!   And a couple other apps that deal with geo, one for home inspection for energy assessments and one for facilities maintenance technicians. So, pretty familiar with how this is SUPPOSED to work, and you are right on track.

[TexMike]

Look through the forum links posted earlier. You can use Occupancy 2.0 with anything that allows you to issue an HTTP command. Locative works well for iPhones and Tasker and Automagic for Android.

[jtara92101]

On 5/18/2020 at 12:56 PM, TexMike said:

Look through the forum links posted earlier. You can use Occupancy 2.0 with anything that allows you to issue an HTTP command. Locative works well for iPhones and Tasker and Automagic for Android.

Unclear from those links how I would integrate specifically with Occupancy 2.0. I must be missing something here...

I already set a home/away variable locally using Locative and IFTTT. But that's not the same as Occupancy 2.0.

Guessing here... if I install Occupancy 2.0, then I will get some inputs/outputs that I can use in a Program? So, the I can use Locative (or whatever) to set home/away and/or some more specific value(s) like distance?

I did set up Occupancy 2.0 once. I will do so again and poke around a bit more.

[TexMike]

When you set up a device in the portal it will give you URL's to set in/out. You can use any method of your choice to set in/out. I use Automagic for our Android phones and Locative for the kids iPhones.

[jtara92101]

Oh, geez, OK, I just now got the bright idea to click on the "Help" button! (In my defense, I would have never seen the Help button had I not just been curious enough to set up a geofence and device...

I see there is a URL to hit when in, and when out.

So, sure easy enough to set up with Locative and IFTTT. But for the unwashed public, would be better if it "just works" without having to involve IFTTT and typing of URLs.

I'm just going to go ahead and write the app. Piece of pie. For starters, will need to type in uuid, which is painful but proof of concept.

Assume there is a bit more to the API than the in/out. Is the API public? If not, I will check with Michael.

 

[jtara92101]

Yea, we cross-posted. I just discovered that, would never have found it without actually setting up a geofence and device.

Oh, no IFTTT needed can do it just in Locative? I guess I needed IFTTT previously (haven't had any kind of occupancy set up for a while) in order to set a variable on the ISY so had to have ISY/IFTTT integration set up and then could use IFTTT to set the variable.

There are some bells/whistles obviously with the short code generation and communication of the uuid I will look into.

I've got a better way yet. Would have to convince UDI to display a QR code in the portal. Already have the app for that. cut/paste exercise.

Edited May 23, 2020 by jtara92101

[TexMike]

Glad you're on the right track. I just wish there was a reliable geofence for Android, power management seems to have hobbled all of them. I put in a request to Google for native geofence, I'm sure they'll get right on it?. I have resorted to just using WiFi connectivity for Android and hopefully some day Polisy will support presence detection and I won't have to support apps on all the phones.

[jtara92101]

I gather UDI Mobile was never released for iOS, just some beta testing that didn't go so great?

For iOS, geofencing can/should be centrally managed by the OS. Applications register for notifications, and get notified based on their chosen criteria. e.g. notify me every n seconds, every n feet or miles, or upon crossing a boundry. Apps wake up momentarily when they are notified, they are expected to handle the notification and then return. If the app was sleeping, it goes back to sleep. iOS is careful to use the fewest resources needed to satisfy the aggregate needs of apps that register for geolocation notifications.

Android I am less familiar with, I can't imagine it is different! But if most/all of the Android geofencing apps have a power management problem, perhaps Android has done dealt with this as well as iOS.

I write apps using a cross-platform framework. (Rhodes/Rhomobile). The framework exposes almost all device capabilities using common interfaces. So, I write once, only very occasionally writing "native extensions". (This doesn't need one.) UI is in a WebView using HTML/CSS/JS so quick to throw together a UI. MVC is in Ruby, it is very similar environment to Ruby on Rails server with browser. (The "server" is in the app.)

Contrary to popular belief, there are no performance issues vs "native" code.

I've incorporated geolocation in a couple of apps for clients, but haven't had a need for geofencing. And I did a native iOS taximeter, but would never go native today. Too much low-level work and too much to learn for two platforms!

So, will be interesting to see if it turns out the Android battery performance sucks...

Edited May 23, 2020 by jtara92101

[TexMike]

I believe UDI Mobile was only targeted for Android, apparently worked for a while and then abandoned when Android updates killed it along with many other geofenceing apps. I did a lot of testing and could never get a reliable geofence on my phone. Later I realized I only tested on my mid-range phone maybe should have tested on my wife's Pixel 3XL. I moved on and changed the way I disarm and it works OK. The only thing I miss out on is a little HVAC recovery before arriving, so I gave up and moved on.

[glarsen]

I'm still using it on my Samsung Note 10+ and my wife's Samsung S9+, both of which are on Android 10, and both of which  work just fine.

[jfai]

UDI Mobile, IFTTT, Alexa, MacroDroid - I've tried them all with various Android versions and 4 different phones and none of them is sufficiently reliable when it comes to geofencing. At one point I implemented a "3 out of 4" algorithm using 3 location apps and a Wi-Fi connectivity sensor. That worked, but the additional complexity wasn't warranted.

Now I'm using MacroDroid geofencing and Wi-Fi connectivity together with the Occupancy 2 node server. Straightforward and reliable.

[Mecheng70]

I have switched from Tasker to HomeAssistant.  There is an app for both OSes and the app looks very much like the web page version.  Had HA on a RPI but didn't like how it was running so moved it over to my plex server.  I haven't been happier with the layout (completely configurable).