I have an opnsense router managing my network and it is sadly not on the list of supported devices. Is there any way I can detect when people are home/not home using this box anyway. It feels like it should not really be a process that relies on specific hardware. Feels like if you can ping a device it is around, otherwise it is not kind of a thing. That suggests there might be a polling type option I can use that I have not yet discovered.
i.e. How could I notice when my Mobile leaves the house or returns to the house ?
Don’t want to be rude but search before asking is a good practice in general.
To be complete in my answer : yes there is a device_tracker based on ping. I’ll let you find the documentation.
Multiple device trackers can be used in parallel, such as Owntracks and Nmap. The state of the device will be determined by the source that reported last.
Truthfully I did not think Pinging a device would be a good solution for mobile and assumed there would be a proper component for finding devices on a generic network. I currently use my Fing box for this and I wanted to avoid having to send out to IFTTT and back into HA in order to work out I’m at home.
HA feels strong enough to do a lot of this stuff, though to a beginner in it the documentation is less clear than you might think. I did of course read the documents on device tracker, they just don’t really seem to help much when you are trying to figure out how to detect the phone. As the discovery options don’t work for me nothing on my network is discovered so I have to do all of this by hand.
Ping will work fine for known and setup devices.
@flamingm0e I’ve read that and couldn’t figure out if I have an android phone that just attached to the network how do I find it. I don’t want to use Owntracks as my wife is really concerned about being tracked and barely tolerates being known to be in the house. It is really the later I want to do, i.e. to replace my Fing box functions with HA. Sadly can’t find Fing as an integration yet either though I suspect someone out there will be looking at it. I followed one article and voted on an upgrade request
I’ve read that and couldn’t figure out if I have an android phone that just attached to the network how do I find it.
It’s not automatic, but what I do is:
I get a new phone, Add it to the Wifi.
I’ll then go into my router, assign it a static IP.
I’ll then get Hass to ping that IP to detect if I’m home.
Takes around 5 minutes, and after the initial set up I dont need to worry about it again, or its IP address changing and it losing me, etc.
When I got a new router it was a pain as I had to set all my static IPs again…
However I also used this method to track if my Wireless Printer had lost Wifi before trying to print something (Never buy the entry level HP Wifi Laserjet…). I just set it up a static IP and ping it with home assistant. if its “Home” its “Online”.
Just be aware that new Androids sleep and will not respond to ping or nmap. There are other solutions though, look into SNMP and ARP tables of the router if this is an issue for you.
It is more about me understanding the documentation and how it fits together than anything else. Not on you at all your input has been great, all on me. I’m waiting for the misses to be on nights so I can get some time to really focus on it.
I think all of the potential capability has got me a bit enthused. When I think about it what my current domoticz installation does is a fraction of the capability of this…
feels a bit basic for such a smart looking application LOL.