Do Virtual Devices exist on HS

[mikee123]

I am thinking of jumping ship from Vera Plus, I need to investigate a few things before I can make a decision. I use Virtual Switches (devices) In Vera to display the status of my (Android) phone (at home/not at home) and that of my wife. Then depending on the status of the phones I run logic to turn heating on/off etc. I use a autolocation/tasker combo on the phones which turns on/off the virtual switches on Vera. Is something like that possible in HS, or how would I be able to recreate that ? I am looking at buying a SEL or S6, not sure yet what to go for

[mrhappy]

Absolutely and very easy to do in terms of having a device to represent something that is not physically related to a piece of hardware, they can ultimately get complex if you need to but for simple on/off they are easy to do. What actually turns this device on/off is another matter and is usually the more complex part (whether it is a plugin or such).

[mikee123]

Ok I want to use tasker to flick that virtual switch, for example as mentioned to determine if a phone is home, so that seems to be possible at least.
Might not be easy but Vera took a while to master too, and help from the forum. So I am not expecting to just be able to create everything I have on Vera within a few days, but I want to know that I can do what I do with Vera, that's important.

[Planetview]

Ok I want to use tasker to flick that virtual switch, for example as mentioned to determine if a phone is home, so that seems to be possible at least.
Might not be easy but Vera took a while to master too, and help from the forum. So I am not expecting to just be able to create everything I have on Vera within a few days, but I want to know that I can do what I do with Vera, that's important.

I am able to control a virtual switch with Tasker to set occupancy status in HomeSeer.

I have also made buttons using Tasker on my phone home screen to start events or control devices. I found IFTTT to be unreliable for location handling so I use EgiGeoZone with Tasker to notify HomeSeer and it works excellent.

[mikee123]

I am able to control a virtual switch with Tasker to set occupancy status in HomeSeer.

I have also made buttons using Tasker on my phone home screen to start events or control devices. I found IFTTT to be unreliable for location handling so I use EgiGeoZone with Tasker to notify HomeSeer and it works excellent.

I use buttons on tasker linked to Authomation to start Vera scenes or control devices. Good to know I can do the same on HS. For location handling I use autolocation with tasker, its ok but not great. I have not heard of EgiGeoZone, whats your experience, have you tried autolocation ? I will defientely look into EgiGeoZone to see if it might be better. Can you set geofences there as well or how do you handle your location changes ?

[sooty]

Although there is a beta version with some added (location tracking) functionality, EgiGeoZone is primarily a geofencing application for Android devices so would fit the bill for at home / not at home detection. You can have multiple geofences defined and set the radius etc differently for each.

I use it here along with my PHLocation plug-in but you can also use it stand alone with HS3 if you wanted to create a mechanism (like a web page) to receive the status updates from the app.

In my experience it works exceptionally well at detecting geofence entry exits.

Paul..

[Planetview]

I have not heard of EgiGeoZone, whats your experience, have you tried autolocation ?

I have never tried autolocation, just IFTTT and EgiGeoZone which will work with Tasker as a Geo Fence. EgiGeoZone is built on the Google location service so it is very advanced at location detection. I am also a huge fan of Tasker. IFTTT was not meeting my needs, it failed more than 50% of the time so it is nice that HomeSeer has multiple options.

Thanks to Rupp and the other members here who shared EgiGeoZone and helped me get it set up.