Ubiquiti access points as presence detection

Configuration
1

Wondering if anyone does this? I am looking at the docs https://www.home-assistant.io/components/device_tracker.unifi/ and wondering if I have an access point in a few of my my main rooms (living room/dining room/downstairs/upstairs) would it be possible to track my presence based on conditions?

Monitored Conditions

The Unifi controller returns a number of additional attributes that can be used for tracking devices, including signal strength, rx/tx rates, and which AP it is connected to. The list of possible options may vary depending on your Unifi controller version and if a device is wired or wireless.

2

I think you’d need one in every room you want to track and have them set to a very low power. Could end up being a lot more expensive than something like BLE tracking.

I’ve got three APs (one downstairs, two up) but there’s so much overlap that I doubt it would be useful for anything other than home/not home. Particularly because the upstairs APs are set to a high power to penetrate walls and extend to my sensors outside.

3

i am only in four or five rooms, my rooms upstiars there may be little to zero overlapping

4

how fast is the rssi detection into home assistant? I am curious if it updated once every couple of minutes

5

Then your best bet would be to uses the AP attributes with a Bayesian sensor to attempt to determine your location.

Not sure but if it is a polled sensor you can alter the scan interval to suit your needs:

Edit: it is a polled sensor.

6

thanks, so far i only have one to test with

7 
binary_sensor:
  - platform: bayesian
    prior: 0.1
    observations:
      - entity_id: 'sensor.davids_rssi'
        prob_given_true: below 60
        prob_given_false: above 50
        platform: 'state'
        to_state: 'on'

so if i had the rssi in a sensor, could it be something like this above? if rssi is below 60 then i must be in the room, but above 50, i am not?

8

I would have thought RSSI increases with nearness to the AP?

If so your logic is back to front. Above 50 in room, below 60 not in room.