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    #16
    Originally posted by ts1234 View Post
    I've been pretty happy with these...

    Feasycom 4000m Mobile USB Long Range eddystone ibeacon

    $31.99 on Amazon.
    I did some googling on BT beacons as I wasn't familiar with this technology. If I understand this correctly you don't have to go to your BT devices on your phone and connect to it in order for this to work. Instead, you have to have some app running on your phone and that app will automatically respond to a beacon. In case you don't have the app running on your phone, it will appear as if your phone isn't in reach. That would make it kind of hard because then I have to make sure all family members run the app all the time. Hopefully I misunderstood this. In case this is how it works, are there other solutions that are based on GPS location tracking which would be a one-time setting on your phone?

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      #17
      The phone is just one of many devices that have BT hardware built in. Since the world is about mobile now the phone is what will come up first in searches. RPi, ESP32, most laptops and tablets also have BT. For HA you will likely want to use a stationary device at the house that is pinging for announcements.

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        #18
        What I am trying to do is determining if there is nobody at home and if nobody is at home and the home is not armed and want to arm it. It appears to me that the best way to do this is by making sure no cellular phone is in the house anymore for a few minutes and no motion has been detected anymore for some minutes. That's why I am interested in understanding how this Feasycom beacon works. If it requires an app to run on the phone and the app is not actually running then HS will think the phone is away which creates a possible false alarm.

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          #19
          Originally posted by mulu View Post
          What I am trying to do is determining if there is nobody at home and if nobody is at home and the home is not armed and want to arm it. It appears to me that the best way to do this is by making sure no cellular phone is in the house anymore for a few minutes and no motion has been detected anymore for some minutes. That's why I am interested in understanding how this Feasycom beacon works. If it requires an app to run on the phone and the app is not actually running then HS will think the phone is away which creates a possible false alarm.
          What are the chances of one's phone being off? (The unintended) I guess for best practice the house should be armed at the Alarm Control Panel

          Indeed there is one company in Europe which managed to solve this with a car module which is connected to the car headlamp flasher to send a signal to the server when you are near your house but they are so stubborn they only do 868.3 Frequency and only Jeedom has ever been able to tap into their API.
          They do a Fob-key as well which brings forward the idea of maybe one can modify a Zwave panic button and installed in the car front grill (That sounds so stone age )So base the above listed devices all I think you need is the US frequency



          Eman.

          TinkerLand : Life's Choices,"No One Size Fits All"

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            #20
            mulu...just an fyi ...and guessing you know...that things like locative and geofency run in the background on your phone. They don't need to show in the list of apps running to work. That how it works on my iPhone anyway. I'm not an android user.

            Eman... I've looked at those but want "automation." To me that means I need to do nothing for it to work.

            Michael...Could you clarify if your BT plugin can run on a USB device plugged into a Windows 10 based HS server and support BT5 devices? Or, do I need to build the ESP type devices?

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              #21
              Michael...Could you clarify if your BT plugin can run on a USB device plugged into a Windows 10 based HS server and support BT5 devices? Or, do I need to build the ESP type devices?
              Currently the port is for RPi and ESP32 hardware. I did a google search and it looks like Windows BLE libraries are readily available so I should be able to port it to Windows as well. Stay tuned.

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                #22
                That is AWESOME news!!! Thanks Michael!!!

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                  #23
                  I received the 4000m and a BLE 5 USB plug for my desktop today. I confirmed I am able to recognize the 4000m and the 500m and a few other non-beacon BLE devices such as a laptop and phone. I was not able to recognize the iBeacon from BlueCharm that I had used on my ESP32 development. I was able to with the ESP32 and RPi. Need to fire up an ESP32 to confirm the iBeacon still works.

                  I started down the path of converting the ESP32 C code to .NET. It is about 2000 lines and much work. What I think I will do is make it a two step process. The first is just detection in-range vs. out-of-range. The second is to complete the code conversion so Windows can be one of the BLE servers upon which the location can be trilaterated.

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                    #24
                    Michael,

                    This is great news and your efforts are very much appreciated! If there is any beta testing along the way, or anything else I could help with please let me know.

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                      #25
                      The HS4 mcsMQTT plugin version 5.6.0.0 is at http://mcsSprinklers.com/HSPI_mcsMQTT_5_6_0_0.zip. The Zip is placed in the HS4 folder and the file in the zip updater_override.json is extracted to also in the HS4 folder. From the Plugins menu select Add and the only HS4 one that shows up is mcsMQTT. Select it. Remove updater_override.json to restore normal updater operation.

                      I have done my work in Windows 10 so the Windows libraries included support it. I dont know what will happen if other versions of Windows are attempted. Linux is disabled. I left the beacon scan showing in the console window so if Developer Mode has been enabled you will get a console screen and see the beacons. I will remove this feedback later.

                      Open a discussion thread on the HS4 mcsMQTT forum if you want to continue on this topic with mcsMQTT.

                      mcsMQTT.pdf is also in the zip and put in the \Docs\mcsMQTT folder. Look in particular at Section 12.5 on starting on Page 1213.

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                        #26
                        I'm finishing a project tonight, but this is awesome news and I will start looking at it tomorrow morning with coffee . THANKS!

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                          #27
                          Is there a way to have a geofence set up without using any other apps beyond what the cell phone already has in place?
                          another question - could the geofence be based on the device(phone) connecting to a local wifi to enable to allow events?

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                            #28
                            Originally posted by beachcruiser View Post
                            Is there a way to have a geofence set up without using any other apps beyond what the cell phone already has in place?
                            another question - could the geofence be based on the device(phone) connecting to a local wifi to enable to allow events?
                            I can only really answer for iPhones...No, they change their BT "MAC" all the time for security. They also go to sleep to save power which means they constantly come/go from being connected to your network.

                            It a bit confusing to set up, but you can load the Geofency and Locative on your phone and they work fairly well as long as you have 100% solid cell service at you house. I don't and I like thinks to run local anyway. Look at some of my other recent posts. There has been a lot of discussion around mcsMQTT.

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                              #29
                              I had a very similar experience with my phone jumping large distances outside of the geofence. I had a "vacation mode" that was getting tripped. Turns out, some phones use Wifi access points in a database. Sometimes, it would think an Access point is in China. Sometimes Nebraska. If you have a neighbor that moved recently and took their access point with them, this can cause you grief.

                              I ended up calculating the speed it would take to get from one point to the next since the last reading, and if it was greater than 100 MPH, I would just drop it.

                              Beacons are great, but once things get back to normal-- occasionally I ride my bike to work.
                              HS3 Pro Edition 3.0.0.435 (Windows Server 8.1 on ESXi box)

                              Plug-Ins Enabled:
                              Z-Wave:,RaspberryIO:,AirplaySpeak:,Ecobee:,
                              weatherXML:,JowiHue:,APCUPSD:,PHLocation:,Chromecast:,EasyTr igger:

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                                #30
                                Originally posted by wpiman View Post
                                Beacons are great, but once things get back to normal-- occasionally I ride my bike to work.
                                Solution: https://www.amazon.com/sportuli-Wate.../dp/B07XRL1CT7
                                Michael

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