Geofencing / at-home detection

[JTsao]

This may not be the exact place to put this topic, but I have Polisy Pro with several node servers and have a subscription to ISY Portal.  I am interested in the best way for the ISY to detect if someone is at home.  I currently have a pretty good means of this because I have many DSC security and Insteon motion sensors now connected to the ISY (thanks to the Envisalink-DSC node server).  Basically, if no motion detectors are triggered for a certain period of time, a state variable is updated to indicate no interior motion (=no one in house, maybe).

I have read about geofencing and could possibly implement this in addition to the above.  I discovered a document called the "ISY-994i Home Automation Cookbook" which describes two means of geofencing.  A possible problem is that my family all use iPhones and I cannot seem to find an app called "UDI Mobile" in the app store.  The other geofencing app, "locative", is available.  I am not 100% sure, however, if it is worth the additional complexity to add geofencing logic into my "is someone in the house?" decision.

Can someone elaborate on the best way to implement geofencing with iPhones and if the added complexity is worthwhile?  Thanks in advance for any replies.

[TexMike]

UDI Mobile was only for Android and is no longer supported. Locative works well with iPhones through the portal occupancy nodeserver.

[JTsao]

Got geofencing working with 4 iPhones+Locative and ISY Portal - so far working well, thanks!

[JTsao]

Is there any way to geofence based on connecting an iPhone to the home WiFi network?

 

[DaveStLou]

1 hour ago, jtsao said:

Is there any way to geofence based on connecting an iPhone to the home WiFi network?

I use the Ping Polyglot Node Server to do just that with both iPhone and Android phones. It does require setting fixed IPs to make it work.

[Mustang65]

14 minutes ago, DaveStLou said:

I use the Ping Polyglot Node Server to do just that with both iPhone and Android phones. It does require setting fixed IPs to make it work.

Have you had any issues yet, using ping. If so what are they.

Thanks

[Jimbo.Automates]

It's been on my list for a long time to implement all methods used by this https://www.openhab.org/addons/bindings/network/#presence-detection-configure-target-device
But since Tasker on Android already does it for my family's phones I haven't had the motivation.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[DaveStLou]

36 minutes ago, Mustang65 said:

Have you had any issues yet, using ping. If so what are they.

Thanks

The only issue I have is that at times devices miss pings so I build delays into the variable I use to keep track of each person's phone.

Here's an example:

s.Home.Hannah - [ID 01C7][Parent 0151]

If
        'Polyglot / Ping / HannahiPhone' Host Status is On Network
    And 'Polyglot / Ping / HannahiPhone' Missed Pings < 5
 
Then
        $s.Home.Hannah  = 1
 
Else
        Wait  5 minutes
        $s.Home.Hannah  = 0
 

So after it has missed 5 pings, it waits 5 minutes before it assumes the phone has left the premises. I generally don't have trouble on the arrivals.

 

[DaveStLou]

1 minute ago, Jimbo said:

It's been on my list for a long time to implement all methods used by this https://www.openhab.org/addons/bindings/network/#presence-detection-configure-target-device
But since Tasker on Android already does it for my family's phones I haven't had the motivation.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk
 

@Jimbo I use Tasker extensively but have found it's location services unreliable at times. Are you using connection to determine when you are home? Also, since I'm the only phone in the house using Tasker, that limits its usefulness for presence.

[Jimbo.Automates]

@Jimbo I use Tasker extensively but have found it's location services unreliable at times. Are you using connection to determine when you are home? Also, since I'm the only phone in the house using Tasker, that limits its usefulness for presence.

I only use WiFi connection, all geofencing can be flakey and give wrong answers occasionally so wasn't worth it to me.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[larryllix]

2 hours ago, DaveStLou said:

@Jimbo I use Tasker extensively but have found it's location services unreliable at times. Are you using connection to determine when you are home? Also, since I'm the only phone in the house using Tasker, that limits its usefulness for presence.

I have only one cell tower available from my home so no cell tower triangulation can occur. It is only based on absolute signal strength and would be a ring area around that tower. Signal strength varies with atmospheric conditions also.

The Apple people seem to be able to make geofencing work well though.

[simplextech]

2 hours ago, Jimbo said:

I only use WiFi connection, all geofencing can be flakey and give wrong answers occasionally so wasn't worth it to me.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk
 

I use CalAmp GPS units and my own Traccar server.

[markv58]

3 hours ago, Mustang65 said:

Have you had any issues yet, using ping. If so what are they.

Thanks

I wrote the Ping node server and I isn't reliable enough to use as a presence indicator with my iPhone. I have my phone set to a static ip and it shows In Fault and Off network all the time. I use ping to keep track of other Polyglots around the house.

The Presence node server is what I use on several RPi polyglot devices to detect when I'm at home and that works quite well. The only problem is getting it to install, I haven't gotten it to work on Polisy yet and haven't done much trouble shooting but I have figured out how to install on a RPi if you want to and have trouble.

 

[Jimbo.Automates]

Yes, that's discussed in the link I posted how they watch for the apple devices.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[JTsao]

To be clear, can someone confirm the following for iPhone presence detection / geofencing with the ISY+various node servers?

(1) Locative app on iPhone + ISY Portal geofence node server seems to work fairly well with iPhones except (a) if the circle is too small, iPhone inadvertently leaves the geofence and (b) iPhone battery seems to drain faster and (c) requires Locative app to always have GPS access and run in background

(2) Ping node server - requires IP reservation or static IP (not a big issue) but ICMP pings don't always get responses from sleeping iPhones at home, therefore may require de-bouncing: arrival generally works but may be difficult to maintain detection while on premises, possibly to the point of not being viable (I am just now evaluating)

(3) Presence node server - from what I can tell, this also uses ICMP ping, so not sure if it would have any added benefit over the Ping node server, except for addition of using bluetooth (due to limited range, I am not considering BT for purposes of this discussion)

(4) ARP Ping or Bonjour message may be better suited for detecting iPhones at home - but I am not aware of any node server supporting this - can someone verify?

 (5) Any other options?

[simplextech]

20 minutes ago, jtsao said:

(5) Any other options?

Yeah... what's your budget?

 

[JTsao]

Was trying to make something work with the equipment in-hand = ISY994, Polisy Pro, ISY Portal subscription...

[larryllix]

I think the trick is to insert code into your router now.

Sent using Tapatalk

[simplextech]

20 minutes ago, jtsao said:

Was trying to make something work with the equipment in-hand = ISY994, Polisy Pro, ISY Portal subscription...

Using ISY Portal and the standard Occupancy NodeServer along with your iPhone and Geofency work very well.  I have not tried with Locative.

Accepting that phone based GPS is NOT going to be super reliable and you can't have a super small geofencea and there will be battery drain from the app.

[Teken]

To be clear, can someone confirm the following for iPhone presence detection / geofencing with the ISY+various node servers?

(1) Locative app on iPhone + ISY Portal geofence node server seems to work fairly well with iPhones except (a) if the circle is too small, iPhone inadvertently leaves the geofence and ( iPhone battery seems to drain faster and © requires Locative app to always have GPS access and run in background

(2) Ping node server - requires IP reservation or static IP (not a big issue) but ICMP pings don't always get responses from sleeping iPhones at home, therefore may require de-bouncing: arrival generally works but may be difficult to maintain detection while on premises, possibly to the point of not being viable (I am just now evaluating)

(3) Presence node server - from what I can tell, this also uses ICMP ping, so not sure if it would have any added benefit over the Ping node server, except for addition of using bluetooth (due to limited range, I am not considering BT for purposes of this discussion)

(4) ARP Ping or Bonjour message may be better suited for detecting iPhones at home - but I am not aware of any node server supporting this - can someone verify?

 (5) Any other options?

I can confirm the Locative iOS smart application still works even though the author has stopped development and live server integration. I can also confirm the iOS smart application updated the status of Home & Away once the boundary was reached.

As to the *Other* possible options you may consider reviewing a few suggestions in this forum with respect to *Beacons /iBeacons*. I like many others either have it working superbly or not at all depending upon software / hardware integration. At the moment I have a Alpha / Beta system using a RPI3 / RPI4 to provide hyper local detection and it has thus far been rock solid. The Ping Node Server is a nice option for the vast majority of devices I have on hand but it fails to work on the last 10% of hardware in my home.

Initially I found the failures due to higher security settings where black hole detect  / no ping reply was enabled. Whereas another reason was the target device was expecting valid IP address and credentials before acking a ping response. The last 1~2% I haven't found what is causing the Ping Node Server from failing to receive a simple ping reply. As a basic ping from any hardware: cell, tablet, computer, remote, always replies back with a positive reply. 

 

[Whitehambone]

 

On 3/5/2020 at 12:26 PM, jtsao said:

Was trying to make something work with the equipment in-hand = ISY994, Polisy Pro, ISY Portal subscription...

I know you do not have it on hand, but MobiLinc GeoFencing and iBeacons works very well.  My garage opens nearly every time just as I pull into my driveway.  Sometimes there are some delays, but not often.  Just another option that I did not see mentioned (I could have missed it).