I've already had some misses with the Hubitat app.
Life360 failed to install, and I have privacy issue with it too...I'm sure insurance companies love it.
With Homeseer I used LR Bluetooth, and it worked well. I had LR transmitters under the hood of each car. That worked well and I liked it because phone-based ones if I went in/out of my Geofence on a walk, I had to manually change house modes to keep it from unlocking door and opening the garage. To me, anything manual is not automation.
I saw there was a BT app, but not sure how well it works...or even what version of BT is supported on the hub. Plus, I really like the "all in a single tiny box" approach with Hubitat.
All that said, I've used Geofency before...and just wondering if there is something else better Hubitat users are using today.
There is no BlueTooth support in any of the Hubitat hubs.
I personally use Apple HomeKit to turn on/off a Hubitat Virtual Switch/Presence sensor that I exposed to HomeKit using the built-in HK integration. This has been a very reliable solution for both my wife and I.
Obviously, you'd need to use iPhones for this solution to work.
This app allows Hubitat users to build automations (e.g., using the Rule Machine) that trigger events to occur based upon the presence (or absence) of a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacon.
If you are a user of ALEXA then the ALEXA app is ROCK SOLID on geofencing just have it trigger a virtual switch in HE. Been using it for over a year with zero issues. Both iphone and android.
I am currently using Locative for maybe a year now and itās 100% for me on my iPhone 12.
BUT my son has always resisted another app on his phone. He has my hand-me-down iPhone 8. But since Apple home is a default installed app and with the new HomeKit support I have virtual switches set up and I have been testing it for the last week or so. No false events so far.
I think I will stick with the locative for now myself but HomeKit gets a thumbs up from me.
I also right now have a 12. Great news thanks! My only concern is I'm about to move back to AT&T from Verizon. Back before AT&T built out new infrastructure in my neighborhood...I learned that coverage really matters for Geofencing (obvious I know) and it used and my fencing used to be spotty just from that. I've used PHLocation, Locative, and Geofency in the past so I'm fairly comfortable with them and as I said...good to hear and THANKS!
Odd,,,When I held mine up to one in Best Buy it looked significantly smaller. Maybe they had the wrong one in the display spot. Good to know. I have an iWatch too which makes converting more painful...However, since I'm a Windows user stuck with iTunes and other "getting along problems" I'm really thinking of going to something that gives me almost a small 1/2 laptop screen of viewing and still folds down to a phone size device.
First comment - no matter WHAT GEOFENCE you use - a block away is too close. You are dealing with your phones GPS and cloud apps - if you do it that close AND you set security up to turn off when home very likely there will be times when your geofence OFF won't trigger fast enough or before you reach the house. I usually set ours for at least 1 mile away.
As to Alexa, it is easy to set up. Both my wife and I have the alexa app on our phone. In HE, we setup 3 virtual switches - Tom Gone Alexa (me), Carol gone Alexa (her), and BOTH GONE.
On my phone, I go into Alexa and set up a new ROUTINE. As a trigger WHEN THIS HAPPENS, use LOCATION. Pick your home address. The default geofence will come up you can adjust it. Again I recommend about a mile or more. Then when my device LEAVES that location, I have it TURN ON TOM GONE ALEXA. I do another routine for TOM HOME ALEXA.
Then - I go to my WIFES phone and do similar for her.
Lastly, in HE, I have a rule that turns on BOTH GONE switch when BOTH TOM GONE and CAROL GONE is on, and turns it off when ONE OF US is home and one of those 2 switches turn OFF.
THEN we use the BOTH GONE to trigger the security to come on, close any garage doors left open, adjust lights, temp, etc.
My only recent experience is with Homeseer HS4 and the HSBuddy app which is rock solid. I did exaggerate a bit by accident. When I looked at my fence to check it is 2 blocks. Since this is opening a garage door and unlocking my house a mile away doesn't work for me. I can usually see my garage about halfway open when I drive up.
WebCoRe also is a great alternative for geofencing and location mgmt. All of them rely on the same cell towers and coverage though so if you have spotty coverage you won't be able to do what you want with opening your garage as you approach the house. I can't do this my coverage is too spotty for this. I DO use it to set lighting, HVAC and our home security and camera settings though.
Mine is 300m, but I have no doubt it would work much closer than that. I've watched my presence change and it almost always happens right at my geofence border. I have it set just inside the end of our block.
I currently use Combined Presence with the Hubitat app and WiFi (just a backup, really), but on our old phones we had bad luck with Hubitat presence and used OwnTracks. I liked that it didn't require a third-party cloud service (but it does use the Hubitat servers).
A mile is way too far for me. Lots of stop lights, our grocery store, gas station and some restaurants we like are within a mile. We don't want our doors unlocked and garage open if we're doing something else inside our radius.
Seems like the iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 12 Pro have almost identical screen sizes and resolutions.
