Hi everyone,
i’m new to HA and new to this forum.
I need to track presence (just home/not at home) of me (android user) and my girlfriend (apple user) to activate my home security system when there’s no one at home and, more important, to deactivate it before we turn the key into the door, avoiding to annoy the neigborhood.
I saw many videos and guides on how to do it in many different ways but so far i didn’t find one ultimate method that was fast, accurate, dependable and that doesn’t drain the battery of my phone.
I’ve tried with geocoded location from the companion app but it wasn’t fast enough unless i set a very fast refresh but it drains the battery a lot.
I then managed to find the integration of my wifi router and used my phone connection entity to manage the automation. This system works for some time but then it stops working and i see that the integration generate new entity for my phone…plus, it’s not fast enough ad i’ve experienced many false disconnections.
I then tried with ping integration, using fixed IP for my phone but it still won’t be fast enough and created problems on my fiance iphone.
I’m now looking into BLE trackers like ESP but i also don’t want to buy anything if i’m not 100% sure it works good for my application.
Do you guys have any suggestion?
Thanks.
This may disappoint you but I gave up on doing it that way. Failed to often in to many ways.
Now I settled with a rfid key reader near the door (inside the house). I’ve put a 10 seconds delay on the alarm before it triggers. That will give me enough time to arm or disarm the alarm.
For rfid tag the family use keychain tags but I can also use key cards or ultra thin tags in clothing , phones or on other items
This is what i feared…i really hope that somebody can suggest me a real dependable method to use.
Anyone else have some suggestions?
My experience agrees with @AshaiRey. I gave up with my wife’s iPhone as geolocation drained the battery (even faster than normal iPhone) and was not updating fast enough to be useful anyway. BLE was somewhat better but still not reliable, if you left your phone in the car for example. Same for ping, if you weren’t with the device you’re stuck.
I’ve installed a tag reader near each door and there’s a tag on each keyring.
Install a smart lock that talks to HA - e.g. NUKI
Make an automation that disables the alarm when the smart lock starts to unlock the door.
I put a couple of bluecharm beacons in, that definitely helped the detection time. It’s now just a couple of seconds. I also use owntracks instead of HA companion app for location tracking.
That said, I turn house occupancy on whenever we are returning from being away and are less than 10 miles from home. Primarily I do this to get the heat back on. You could try a lower radius.