Well don’t forget to use other conditions. Try adding a time sensor, a ping sensor, and a Bayesian sensor.
It would make me very nervous to open or unlock any doors solely based on location. Can you add anything else into the mix? Maybe a router-based device tracker? So your garage wouldn’t open until your phone GPS says you’re home AND you’re connected to your wifi. Or maybe a motion sensor on your driveway (not quite as safe as the wifi option, but better than just GPS alone).
That is a good idea. I have already locked it down to a time based automation and I also send out push notifications to the family when the door opens. But yeah, it made me very nervous as well. If I cannot rely on it, I will just disable that feature. Having the ability to open and close the door with my app is alone a valuable feature, I just tried to get cute with it.
Maybe this is just nonsense but in my situation, the reason why i have this intermittent jumps is this:
Iphone is updating the location according to triangular method used from the Cell Towers (Not exactly GPS). If your phone connects to a tower that is farther away, yeah… you’re outside the zone. Check it out on Life360, if the blue circle around your phone is more than 100 meters, you can only connect to 2 or only 1 tower. Sometimes my phone shows me with 6.5 meters accuracy, sometimes it is 500 meters… If you are connected to only 1 tower, then iphone thinks you are inside a 1000m radius circle around that tower. Especially during hot summer days, if the power goes off or aircon goes off in a cell tower, it becomes off for about half an hour, and that is when my iphone location shows me i am elsewhere…
Yet again i might be speaking gibberish, but it looks so logical to me i am intended to believe it
Or if you’re using push notifications already, why not make them actionable? Send yourself a “Would you like to open the garage?” notification and only open it when you respond.
Ahhh, I dont know how to do that and did not even know push notification’s could be actionable. here is my automation.
action:
- service: notify.mobile_app_bryaniphonese
data:
title: "Opening up the garage door"
message: "Now Opening the garage door, Bryan is home!"
- service: switch.turn_on
entity_id: switch.welle_garage
- delay: 500 ms
- service: switch.turn_off
entity_id: switch.welle_garage
You’re about to open up a whole new world for yourself!
Just wanted to say thank you _Mike, I finally had a chance to implement this. I was initially hesitant to implement an actionable notification for opening my garage door when I come home, because I usually keep my cell iPhone in my pocked when I drive. But… Black Friday was Merry Christmas to me, I now have an apple watch so it will be as easy as clicking a button on my watch when I am a couple blocks from home to open my garage door. And the best part is, because it is actionable the door will NEVER open without me telling the door to open.
Awesome! Glad you got it to work!
@bwelle The most useful actionable notification I have set up is this: When the last person leaves home and (the garage door is open, a door is unlocked, or the alarm is not is not set to Away) I receive an alert that asks whether I should set my “Leave Home” scene that closes, locks, and arms everything.
@_Mike, just curious what product you went with on your door locks and what worked well with HA. I am assuming you are using deadbolts, or do they make a normal door knob lock also?
I have only ever seen smart deadbolt locks. I am using August locks. They work pretty reliably with HA, with only occasional blips.