Alternatives to using ST presence

@ogiewon I submit for healthy debate that the list really has two categories; Location (Geolocation) and Presence (two devices connecting in a local short-range network)

In my mind, I’ve always categorized Geolocation as anything cellular based that has a minimum range of 400ft (Because that’s the lowest detection range I’ve seen for something cellular based), and call Location for shorthand, as do the phone manufacturers.

For anything Zigbee, Bluetooth or WiFi, I have always considered it to be Presence because it uses short distance radio waves that only indicate a users presence when a device connects to a local transmitter or mesh network, not via triangulation.

I do not consider anything the detects a user motion to be presence detection, because the object or person must continue to move for detection to remain active.

How does everyone else see this distinction, or do you? I think it's important, at least in creating automations, that there is some kind of understanding and distinction of the two types, how they react and how they should be used together. Otherwise we start wondering things like "Why did [all] my lights suddenly turn on" when our phones or devices briefly lose and regain the local connection that is triggering presence.

Oh, and to add to that nice list you created, there are two types of IFTTT detection. One is Geolocation using triangulation of your phone to the cell towers, and the other is and IFTTT trigger when your phone connects or disconnects from supported WiFI devices. This is what I use for "Presence" with our phones and my TP-Link Deco M5 mesh WiFi.

Also, just to confirm, I'm one of the users that has the Homebridge/HomeKit "Location" service working with HE. Requirements are a node.js server to run Homebridge, an iOS device obviously, and either an Apple TV 4 or later, or an always on iPad that can run the latest iOS. I think @csteele is also using this method if I'm not mistaken.

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