How are you using mobile device Proximity Tracking : Geofencing + Wifi?

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In my old system I used a combination of Geofencing with detecting connectivity to my Wifi (watching for DHCP requests and using Pings).

This way my automations could ‘watch’ both and ensure that if Geofencing lagged or failed, the Wifi connectivity would be accurate.

I plan to use the HA Companion App in combo with the ASUS integration

So a few questions…

  1. Does your People entities use the mobile device entity from the HA Companion App or the router integration, or both?

  2. Would love to see some example automations for detecting Home and Away?

any other pro tips are appreciated!

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It uses whichever device trackers you assign to it in the People menu, based on the order described in the Person integration docs.

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Thank you, I did several searches yesterday and didnt see that page. It is very helpful. IMO if they implemented a prioritization ranking (number) to each device it would simplify the decision matrix (use and understanding) and make it more robust. I’ll put in a feature request.

Still would love to see how people do there occupancy detection automations… I suspect I using Node Red may be better for these complex automation… so I now need to learn NR :frowning:

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As long as you have 1 or 2 reliable device trackers, it’s should be rare for you to need to use automations to detect occupancy, let alone use NR for it.

There are around 70 core Presence detection integrations as well as quite a few custom integrations such as Composite Tracker and iPhone Detect.

FWIW, from my experience when I was a new user, you will be better off if you just commit to either learning HA automations or NR… bouncing back and forth will just slow your progress in both. If you choose NR you may want to join the Home Assistant subreddit. Not to say that it’s unwelcome here on the forums, but there tends to be more NR content there.

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I used to use my router integration (Unifi) for home/away detection but have since moved to GPS location via the companion app.
The router updates were just too infrequent to detect especially the away state properly; I could be quite a distance away from the house before the Unifi integration reported me to be away and armed the alarm.

It also allows me to move from my standard WLAN onto another one (e.g. the IOT one for testing, but I also have one with a full ad blocker/VPN) without having the lights turned off on me all over the house :wink:

As an extension to the home/away I set up a template sensor, so when the phone is home, instead of just showing me as being ‘home’ it uses Bermuda to show me which room the phone is in.

So when I’m away, it shows which zone I’m in (if any, otherwise it just says ‘Away’) and when I’m home it shows the room (e.g. ‘Office’) or just ‘Home’ when I’m inside the Home Zone but outside ot BLE reach.

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