PHLocation V2 Discussion

[randy]

I must be missing something obvious here. I have added my icloud account. Now I am trying to understand where to add the iphones. I have been looking in the users/devices, no iphone users to be added. Then I saw a post mentioning you have to go to "the root device". When I go to the icloud account root device, no drop down. I have been waiting for more then an hour now, and see the account status change from Waiting to Polling regulary, so it seems all is working, but how to add the phones?

Wim

I was just reviewing Paul's first draft of the operator's guide and one thing occurred to me. On the iCloud account management page if you have "Ignore Unknown Devices" checked, it may not present the option to add new devices. While that is not the way I thought it would work, I have never tested to see. Mine still offers me the ability to add a new user/device with that box checked.



From the manual;

Ignore Unknown Devices

DO NOT enable this option until you have added all the User devices that you want included in the plug-in as this option will prevent new devices being discovered.

A single iCloud account may have many devices registered to it but you may only want to monitor some of them in the plug-in. Once all required devices have been added, enabling this option allows the plug-in to ignore the state of the non-included devices which speeds up the polling process considerably for accounts with multiple devices where only some of those devices are included in the plug-in.

[sooty]

I don't think this should be necessary. I would prefer any fix, whether in the history report ot on a history map have the timestamp of when it was last acquired. It really doesn't matter to me if the date stamp of the starting point is from the day before. Other than the situation described below there is really no way for the plug-in to know when you actually start a day, only the time and date of the first position acquisition after you first start moving that day.

I know we discussed this time thing during development Randy.
You're quite right about the start time in that using location fixes only, there is no way to know at what time a trip actually started.

The potential issue I see is with the end time but I'll need to go over the code for this on Sunday (busy tomorrow).
Can't just remember off the top of my head how I did it but I put code in there to detect if a device had stopped moving.
This was done so that it could override the min dist to move when the device had stopped.

e.g.
User has the min dist to move set at 0.2 miles.
10:10:00 Position update happens to come in and is saved when device is 0.1 miles from home.
10:15:00 Another position update comes in and device is now at home and stopped.
With the 10:15:00 update the device has not moved more that the 0.2 mile min dist to move so point is not stored and plug-in incorrectly shows user 0.1 miles from where they actually are with a time stamp in the db of 10:10:00.

Currently when the 10:15:00 update comes in and the plug-in detects that the user has stopped, it will delete the 10:10:00 point and replace it with the 10:15:00 one although I can't just remember the criteria I used to do this.

What I noticed in my testing a couple of day ago is that if the update interval is long (say 10 minutes) it can sometimes take 2 or 3 updates for it to detect that the user has stopped. In the above example, if it took 3 updates for it to detect "Stopped" then it will replace the 10:10:00 point with one timed at 10:40:00 which is quite a way off what it would actually have been.

Of course it would not be correct to use the 10:10:10 time either but I could maybe use the time from the 1st fix that comes in after the 10:10:00.

I'll give it some more thought over the weekend.

Paul..

[randy]

To add to Randy's post.

Yes, S=start E=end.

To establish the start point for a trip, it uses the stored point immediately proceeding the time span start time.
As an example you returned home at 6pm one evening (day 1), then left again at 7am the following day (day 2) with your first point on day 2 being recorded at 7:05 am 4 miles from home.
You choose a map span of 2 hours from 7am to 9am on day 2.
Disregarding dates and times. To map this correctly it uses the 6pm point from the previous day as the start point.

As I see it there is not an easy solution without knowing the exact start / stop time of a trip. A possible solution is to have it use the start date time of the chosen time span.

I don't think this should be necessary. I would prefer any fix, whether in the history report ot on a history map have the timestamp of when it was last acquired. It really doesn't matter to me if the date stamp of the starting point is from the day before. Other than the situation described below there is really no way for the plug-in to know when you actually start a day, only the time and date of the first position acquisition after you first start moving that day.

In the case of my vehicle tracking units this issue can be negated because they send ignition on/off messages which can be used to detect the start / end of a trip.

WRT end times.
I won't go into all the detail but under certain circumstances the plug-in replaces the last recorded point when a new position comes in (if the user is in the same location) as opposed to adding a new point. The problem with this is that it also replaces the date/time hence the confusion.

I'll change this so the date time is not replaced.

Paul..

[dibble9012]

Files sent via PM

[w.vuyk]

Log has been send

Thanks,

Wim

[sooty]

Do I have to stop the old plugin maybe to be sure there is only one Icloud service active? In the old plugin I can see devices selectable, But I have the new version running for almost a day, no errors, but no selectible iDevice in the list of users yet here.

No, the 2 plug-ins can run at the same time.

Go to the plug-in general config and set debug to file ON.
Hit the poll button for your iCloud account.
Switch OFF debug to file and then drop me the log file contents in an email.

Paul..

[w.vuyk]

iCloud users are setup on the drop down under users/devices. It does take a few minutes after activating the account before iCloud shows up on the list.

Do I have to stop the old plugin maybe to be sure there is only one Icloud service active? In the old plugin I can see devices selectable, But I have the new version running for almost a day, no errors, but no selectible iDevice in the list of users yet here.

[sooty]

For now, I've created the following event to fix polling, and I think it's working. I'll see when I go to work tomorrow.

You shouldn't need events, it should be doing the polling within the plug-in.

Can you:
Set the polling interval on the problem account to 1 minute.
Disable then re-enable the plug-in, then in the HS3 log you will see a bunch of entries from the plug-in start-up. The ones I'm interested in are contained between the 2 messages (Startup) Begins at.... and (Startup) Finished at....

Once the plug-in is started, go to the general config file and set debug to file ON.
Wait at least 2 minutes, then switch off the debug to file option.

Send me the HS3 log messages and the log file in a PM or email and I'll investigate.

Paul..

[sooty]

I had to put an ampersand at the end of the line below for it to work with EgiGeoZone


https://connected2.homeseer.com/phl2api?dtype=GF

Yes that is a requirement with EGI as it was in V1.

I'm trying hard to get the user guide finished which will have all the configuration info for each type of service but I'm sure it's taking longer that it did to create the plug-in.

I'm planning to have the user guide finished (at least a first version) this weekend.

Paul..

[sooty]

Map Balloons

I see a "S" and "E" balloon on my map. I'm guessing that is for start and end but am questioning it as the time stamps don't really correspond to the beginning and end. Mainly the "S" I'm questioning.

Thanks

To add to Randy's post.

Yes, S=start E=end.

To establish the start point for a trip, it uses the stored point immediately proceeding the time span start time.
As an example you returned home at 6pm one evening (day 1), then left again at 7am the following day (day 2) with your first point on day 2 being recorded at 7:05 am 4 miles from home.
You choose a map span of 2 hours from 7am to 9am on day 2.
Disregarding dates and times. To map this correctly it uses the 6pm point from the previous day as the start point.

As I see it there is not an easy solution without knowing the exact start / stop time of a trip. A possible solution is to have it use the start date time of the chosen time span.

In the case of my vehicle tracking units this issue can be negated because they send ignition on/off messages which can be used to detect the start / end of a trip.

WRT end times.
I won't go into all the detail but under certain circumstances the plug-in replaces the last recorded point when a new position comes in (if the user is in the same location) as opposed to adding a new point. The problem with this is that it also replaces the date/time hence the confusion.

I'll change this so the date time is not replaced.

Paul..

[dibble9012]

For now, I've created the following event to fix polling, and I think it's working. I'll see when I go to work tomorrow.

[drparker151]

I must be missing something obvious here. I have added my icloud account. Now I am trying to understand where to add the iphones. I have been looking in the users/devices, no iphone users to be added. Then I saw a post mentioning you have to go to "the root device". When I go to the icloud account root device, no drop down. I have been waiting for more then an hour now, and see the account status change from Waiting to Polling regulary, so it seems all is working, but how to add the phones?

Wim

I had to put an ampersand at the end of the line below for it to work with EgiGeoZone


https://connected2.homeseer.com/phl2api?dtype=GF

[randy]

Map Balloons

I see a "S" and "E" balloon on my map. I'm guessing that is for start and end but am questioning it as the time stamps don't really correspond to the beginning and end. Mainly the "S" I'm questioning.

Thanks

The start will be the last fix before you start moving again. For example if you stopped last night at home and you didn’t move enough to trigger an update (minimum distance to move) until you left home today the “S” marker will have last nights time stamp. The plug-in knows you moved when it gets a new position update. Clearly that is not the actual start, it is the first new position, the prior position would be the start. The plug-in could assume that you started moving sometime within the polling interval, but it cannot be known exactly when you started moving, but it can be known where you were at the last fix and it can be known when that fix came in. .

Likewise the end end would be the last position fix within the selected timeframe.

[Spudjr]

Map Balloons

I see a "S" and "E" balloon on my map. I'm guessing that is for start and end but am questioning it as the time stamps don't really correspond to the beginning and end. Mainly the "S" I'm questioning.

Thanks

[randy]

I must be missing something obvious here. I have added my icloud account. Now I am trying to understand where to add the iphones. I have been looking in the users/devices, no iphone users to be added. Then I saw a post mentioning you have to go to "the root device". When I go to the icloud account root device, no drop down. I have been waiting for more then an hour now, and see the account status change from Waiting to Polling regulary, so it seems all is working, but how to add the phones?

Wim

iCloud users are setup on the drop down under users/devices. It does take a few minutes after activating the account before iCloud shows up on the list.