Arrival Sensors that Actually Work - All the Time

[ts1234]

Looking into HS to solve irritating issues with SmartThings...

The Geo Fence cell phone concept and Zwave based presence sensors are a great idea, but both are simply flaky in the world of SmartThings. So, a few simple (hopefully) general questions.

Say I want the garage to open, back doors to unlock, certain light come on when I get within the 100 ft from my house. I want this to work flawlessly 100% of the time. I get that may be asking a lot, but that is my expectation for home automation.

Is RFID the answer? Is it this dependable?

*If so, what plugins and hardware would you recommend?

*I assume it can do different things based on different tags? IE - One tag in one car would trigger opening the garage, but the tag in my Jeep that I park on the street would open the front door.

*Are there tags that could also go in a wallet or a purse so that if only that tag "came home" even different events could be triggered?

*Is this a $200 or a $1000 project?

THANKS!

Tom

[tome10]

Do you have cameras? I’ve found that my Blue Iris Geofence is super accurate. People use the Some kind of PHLocation Plugin and absent some issues, it’s pretty robust. I was just reading a post last night where a few guys are using RFID in their cars, and the receiver is in the attic above the garage. I do note that to eliminate the RFID dropping out with the car in the garage, he used two transmitters for redundancy. I’ll try to find that post in a few.
https://forums.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=166470

[mikee123]

Originally Posted by tome10

Do you have cameras? I’ve found that my Blue Iris Geofence is super accurate. People use the Some kind of PHLocation Plugin and absent some issues, it’s pretty robust. I was just reading a post last night where a few guys are using RFID in their cars, and the receiver is in the attic above the garage. I do note that to eliminate the RFID dropping out with the car in the garage, he used two transmitters for redundancy. I’ll try to find that post in a few.
https://forums.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=166470

I use blueiris, but never looked into the geofencing. Do you use this with Android, and are you able to trigger events or turn devices on or off via the BI plugin ?

[S-F]

I've been using PHLocation since day one and I can't say that I've ever had a geofence problem. It's nice this time of year. When I come home after dark HS turns my porch light on for me.

[mikee123]

PHLocation works fine for my phone, not for my wifes. She is at home, but she is not near the fence... so if I used that HS3 would have her as away. I think its her Android version 6 and the wifi going to sleep, hence geolocation becomes inaccurate. I am still on Android 5, so my wifi does not go to sleep, and therefore its all working well.
That is why I am looking for new solutions. With her old phone all was good, but I wanted to upgrade her... not a good idea.

[tome10]

I may have spoke too soon. Me and the wife use iPhones, and it seems the recent update broke something, and the phones are dropping out while at home, and I had to disable the garage door automation. My next phone will be an Android, so I can’t really comment on Android reliability at the moment. I pass the BI geo-status over to virtual devices. It was working flawlessly. I may have to install PHLocation alongside BI Geofence for redundancy. I looked for the PHLocation Plugin for a minute a month or so ago, but couldn’t find it. Then I realized BI had a Geofence and it was off to the races.

[mikee123]

You will run into the same problems with Android. You cannot stop Wifi going to sleep. The setting to keep Wifi alive doesn't work. And I'm sure that's why geofencing is not accurate. PHLocation is great, nothing wrong with the PI it's Android. I was thinking of going back to Apple because of the issues. And I hate Apple. And no tasker on Apple.
I am trying to find another way or ways.
Do you use the lite version of the Blueiris app ? I cannot find the geofencing there. I guess I would need the pro version of the app ?

[S-F]

Someone should make an Android app that keeps wifi on!

[rmiles7721]

Originally Posted by mikee123

I use blueiris, but never looked into the geofencing. Do you use this with Android, and are you able to trigger events or turn devices on or off via the BI plugin ?

Yes, you can. To both. The wife and I are both on Android and use Blue Iris triggers on a couple of events. I also use Phlocation. Between the two it's pretty accurate. I am using Backitude as well as Tasker to update Phlocation from our phones.

[mikee123]

Originally Posted by rmiles7721

Yes, you can. To both. The wife and I are both on Android and use Blue Iris triggers on a couple of events. I also use Phlocation. Between the two it's pretty accurate. I am using Backitude as well as Tasker to update Phlocation from our phones.

I might have to try Backtitude. I am using Egigeozone / Tasker combo at the moment. Are you using the paid Blueiris app to get the geofencing option ? I cant see it in the lite version ? Do your phones wifi go to sleep ?

[Michael McSharry]

A technology that has not been brought up is LoRa such as a RAK811 tracker that has GPS and 900Mhz so one could monitor position of a car and trigger on some threshold. I do not have any hands-on experience, but is an area I am starting to dabble. The technology is pretty big in the IoT world. Since the LoRa range is measured in 1000,s of feet rather than feet the simple presence of signal such as is done with RFID would likely not work for the coming up driveway use case.

[ts1234]

Thanks!

It sounds like 100% accuracy is an issue for HS too. I am still hoping that the RFID types that read 100 ft or so solve this in a stable way for driving up to a home. I'm also hoping that some RFID helps when out walking an come up to the front door.

With smartthings I tried

Bluetooth w/ iBeacons
Wifi
GPS/ iphone with Geofence
Several types of presence sensors

None are 100% and failures case very unwanted result. IMHO real home automation is your home interacting with you dynamically and for at least some events you should never need to do anything but arrive...whether that is from a road trip or from one room to another.

Again...thanks for all the help for this newbie!

[Michael McSharry]

In robust systems it is often the case that redundancy is used. In this case a combination of technologies for raw sensors may be needed. Non-correlated sensors would likely provide the greatest reliability. Some intelligence to integrate the raw data is needed.

[ts1234]

Yes, I have tried using multiple events to trigger events/pistons on SmartThings. For instance, my iphone enters the GeoFence and then w/in the next 5 minutes if the iBeacon on the front porch comes into range...unlock the front door. Since in almost every case one or the other of the combo doesn't work quite right, I end up being frustrated. Wifi goes to sleep, ibeacons delay quite often, geopfences can suck if towers in your area do too. For walking up to the front door I think facial recognition may be about there with some webcams, but the range on that probably won't work well anytime soon so that pulling around the corner starts the garage to open (yes I do want the timing to be so dead on that the garage door reaches fully open just as I get there so I can feel rest assured nobody already walked into it in front of my arrival.

Though this irritates me I've been in data networking for a couple decades. I have some patients with it (though it probably doesn't sound like it). I can't say the same for my wife.

I know it's a lot to ask, but I expect presence to be as seamless as light switch turning on/off. The company that gets it right first will make a fortune. Someday, hopefully not too far from now it just be something we don't even think twice about.

Thanks for the comment!

[Eman]

Originally Posted by ts1234

Yes, I have tried using multiple events to trigger events/pistons on SmartThings. For instance, my iphone enters the GeoFence and then w/in the next 5 minutes if the iBeacon on the front porch comes into range...unlock the front door. Since in almost every case one or the other of the combo doesn't work quite right, I end up being frustrated. Wifi goes to sleep, ibeacons delay quite often, geopfences can suck if towers in your area do too. For walking up to the front door I think facial recognition may be about there with some webcams, but the range on that probably won't work well anytime soon so that pulling around the corner starts the garage to open (yes I do want the timing to be so dead on that the garage door reaches fully open just as I get there so I can feel rest assured nobody already walked into it in front of my arrival.

Though this irritates me I've been in data networking for a couple decades. I have some patients with it (though it probably doesn't sound like it). I can't say the same for my wife.

I know it's a lot to ask, but I expect presence to be as seamless as light switch turning on/off. The company that gets it right first will make a fortune. Someday, hopefully not too far from now it just be something we don't even think twice about.

Thanks for the comment!

This can already be done but may be not over there in the US and Canada ====> Because of this : http://www.productapprovals.co.uk/ul-approval.html

NOTE : I am not saying that you move to Europe but just for information!

What solves such a problem are products from EDISIO

From Amazon : https://www.amazon.co.uk/Edisio/pages/7431545031

And to hook them to HomeSeer is the wonderful plugin Jeedom Software Plug-in for HS3



And my quite outdated post about Jeedom can be found here : https://forums.homeseer.com/showpost...9&postcount=18



Eman.

[Pete]

Is RFID the answer? Is it this dependable?

Here installed RFID tags over the dome lights on vehicles that draw 12VDC from the automobiles and they have worked fine over the years.

That said I use them for software automation up to a point.

I went to mostly using automation for status of the GDO et al and not really touching the built in safety features and opening of the garage door.

The GDO stuff though comes from creating an alarm status / functions circular trigger a few years back where my wife drove in to the garage while on a conference call and having the garage door shut on her while the car was running.

Relating to security panel (and security panel) kept it in the analog hard mode.

[bebaldin]

I have had very good results using PHLocation and FollowMe on Android. Accuracy is very good most places and the setup has required almost no maintenance at all.

My only complaint about Follow Me is that it only updates once a minute, and from time to time a monitored point gets missed because you drive in and out of the zone before the position gets sent. Out in the countryside this isn't a problem because you can increase the radius to cover over a minutes' travel, but in town you try to keep the radius small to avoid false positives from overlap.

I would love to have something on the car instead of the phone that would function this way. Both of my vehicles have the Verizon Hum system, for example, and it would be great if that could be incorporated in somehow. Hum has a geofencing ability that is pretty accurate.

[Pete]

You could also install an automotive APRS system.