Help with Geo Fencing and Push Notification

[FBoucher]

Hi to all,

I need some pointers regarding Geo Fencing and Push Notification. After reading the wiki pages on the subject, I'm rather confused.

Following the wiki for Occupancy & Locative (for IOS), I managed to create the location and geofence nodes. The wiki was written for a previous version of Locative (now at 5.11.0), so I tried my best to configure it for my location. After many tries, it just doesn't seem to work. I used MrBill Locative reset procedure from another post, and if I force an entry or an exit with the long press, I see the status change in ISY admin console. So I guess the configuration is OK and there is something wrong with Locative on IOS 15.4.1. I opened a ticket with Locative.

So I continued reading and found this wiki where it is recommended to use IFTTT and Locative. Is it only true for MobiLinc users or for everyone? I downloaded IFTTT and found that it could be triggered by location on its own. So I created a simple location based notification, but I can't seem to make it work either.

In the end, I'm looking for a way to get notified of water leaks (Insteon leak detectors), movements (Insteon motion sensors) and entry doors being opened (Insteon open/close sensors) on my phone while I'm away (a function that was available with the defunct Insteon Cloud). I also have an old alarm system (wired motion detectors and wired windows switches) connected to an Insteon I/O Linc that gets triggered when the alarm sounds.

What would you recommend? Occupancy - Locative? IFTTT - Locative? IFTTT alone? For the notification app, I'm considering Pushsafer.

[MrBill]

42 minutes ago, FBoucher said:

Following the wiki for Occupancy & Locative (for IOS), I managed to create the location and geofence nodes. The wiki was written for a previous version of Locative (now at 5.11.0), so I tried my best to configure it for my location. After many tries, it just doesn't seem to work. I used MrBill Locative reset procedure from another post, and if I force an entry or an exit with the long press, I see the status change in ISY admin console. So I guess the configuration is OK and there is something wrong with Locative on IOS 15.4.1. I opened a ticket with Locative.

the current version of locative still works fine with the portal.  I'm using it.

 

42 minutes ago, FBoucher said:

this wiki where it is recommended to use IFTTT and Locative.

out of date info.  you don't need IFTTT

---

it sounds like you have locative set up correctly if you are seeing Enter and Exit events in the portal.  Have you restarted the admin console?   It requires a restart after the portal node server adds nodes to the ISY.  Do you see your portal Node server nodes? 

The look like this in the device tree: (white background because I'm not using the default admin console theme).

in the admin console.   "Home" is whatever you named the node in Step 4

 

[FBoucher]

I see in admin console the portal server nodes I created (like your Home and Bill iPhone).

From Locative, if I long press the location and manually trigger an enter event, I receive a notification from Locative, I see a status of Entered in Locative and the portal server nodes are set to true. If I long press the location and manually trigger an exit event, I receive a notification from Locative, I see a status of Left in Locative and the portal server nodes are set to false.

The problem is the events don't get triggered when I cross the geofence boundary which is actually set to 50 m around my house.

[MrBill]

go farther away... and/or there's a slight delay.  Mine are set on the map to be at the edge of the driveway... Leaving the notifications don't trigger until the end of the block... (800 feet farther than the end of the drive.)  Coming its closer to the expectation, they trigger just about in front of the house.

Note: early versions of IOS 15 had broken GeoFences.  Make sure your IOS is up to date.

make a program like this one:

bill - [ID 00F3][Parent 00F2]

If
        'Home / Bill iPhone' Occupied is True
 
Then
        Resource 'Pushover.EnterBill'
 
Else
        Resource 'Pushover.ExitBill'
 

Substitute Notify for network resources if need be.  so that you will get notified when it trips and then go for a drive, and see what happens.

[FBoucher]

Thanks, I'll try this.

I see that you use Pushover. How does it compare to Pushsafer?

[MrBill]

I’ve never used pushsafer, so I can’t say.   I Google pushsafer and what I got was priced in euro’s by volume. 
 

pushover has no recurring fee’s.  Buy the app once and you’re done.  30 day free trial.  It’s instant delivery.  I can’t find any negatives.

[FBoucher]

I tried Locative and you were right. It detected that I left the zone when I was way outside the home zone (like 3 times). Now, I was driving my car, so there is maybe a time hysteresis that would trigger closer to the zone if I was walking.

I'm a bit concerned with the battery drain of geofencing. I guess that to make this work, I would have to let Locative use the location service all the time. How have you configured your system to limit battery drain?

[FBoucher]

I'm looking at Pushover. To install on my ISY, do I have to follow this wiki?

If yes, when I click on https://pushover.net/apps, I get to a page where there is a list of apps, including one for Universal Devices by Jim Searle. Should I use this one or create my own?

[FloridaGary]

iOS 15.5 was released to the public today. It may not fix your problem, but it would be better to resolve your issue with the latest update. 

[MrBill]

12 hours ago, FBoucher said:

I'm a bit concerned with the battery drain of geofencing. I guess that to make this work, I would have to let Locative use the location service all the time. How have you configured your system to limit battery drain?

I give locative “always” access, it’s not a huge drain on the battery.  I never notice Locative on the list of heavy battery users.

 

11 hours ago, FBoucher said:

I'm looking at Pushover. To install on my ISY, do I have to follow this wiki?

If yes, when I click on https://pushover.net/apps, I get to a page where there is a list of apps, including one for Universal Devices by Jim Searle. Should I use this one or create my own?

There’s three ways to use Pushover.  The old method, which is the wiki link you posted.  There are also two polyglot node servers, one is called Push and it is simpler and I believe free under PG3.  Then @JimboAutomates created another that’s more feature rich called Notification.  As far as I know Notification is the only method that will retry on some error conditions.   I’m at the end of a long Comcastic cable in a rural area, it’s not uncommon for me to have some packet loss.i used to send some of my notifications to myself 3-ways, email, text and pushover about 99% of the time I’d receive them all, but sometimes one would get lost.  After jimbo created notification I was finally able to rely on one method.  Notification does retry when my crappy internet connection doesn’t work right.  Neither Push, nor the ISY using Network Resources retry—the post the message and if it didn’t go out it doesn’t go out.

11 hours ago, FloridaGary said:

iOS 15.5 was released to the public today. It may not fix your problem, but it would be better to resolve your issue with the latest update. 

geofences we’re broken from the release of iOS 15 until like February. Like 5-6 months.  It didn’t just effect Locative users, it effected all iOS users for about 5-6 months.  But thankfully it’s been fixed for a couple months now.  It was Apples fault, and no could understand why the bug wasn’t getting more attention.  There are numerous threads in this forum covering the issue.

[FBoucher]

Thanks MrBill.

My home is in an urban vicinity with a pretty reliable internet access. I configured Pushover "the old method" and I also have email configured in parallel. I'll use it like this for a while and see how it goes.

For Locative, as I said a few post back, it worked when I got far away from my house. My house boundary is set at 50 meters. When I did the initial testing, I walked away up to 70-80 meters from the house and Locative didn't trigger. But when I drove away more than 150 meters from the house, Locative triggered. So it works, but not quite as I expected. I thought geo fencing would be more precise.

[MrBill]

20 minutes ago, FBoucher said:

I thought geo fencing would be more precise.

that might be Apple's method of battery saving.   I note that when leaving the house it takes about the same distance as you mention to "leave" but when returning it triggers about as expected.  It may "sleep" more when you're not moving fast, as you move faster in a vehicle updates may be more frequent.   We don't really know because Locative is actually only the interface... the geofence itself i believe is an iOS function.... at least I think that's what I learned while studying the great iOS broke geofences in iOS15 scandal.

[FBoucher]

You're probably right. Thanks again.