Guests frequently stay in our home while we're away. Currently I have a "Company Mode" switch that disables most of the presence-based automations. But has anyone gone to other lengths to include guest presence in automations? Like a presence sensor for their keychain, or even asking them to install Life360...?
I just added two Iris 4 button fobs for this, and virtual switches to enable or disable them. If either is enabled and present, a Guest Presence switch gets turned on (using Cobra's virtual presence plus driver), which sets house mode like another person. When we have guests (or housesitters) I'll just ask them to hang it on their keyring. I used two of the buttons on each to control the garage door, since we usually end up giving guests an opener anyway...two birds one stone. I haven't had an opportunity to use them yet, but when I tested they seemed to work pretty well.
Awesome, yeah I was just looking at the Iris fobs...
Hopefully they will work when I actually have someone use them
I like the idea of giving them a guest sensor. Very cool idea I may buy a couple more ST presence sensors to accommodate this. How would you be able to remove/add a presence sensor into your RM based on a virtual switch āuse guest presenceā??
2 Iris presence sensors, Guest Fob 1 and Guest Fob 2
2 virtual switches, Guest Fob 1 Enable and Guest Fob 2 Enable
1 virtual presence plus device, Guest Presence (virtual presence plus allows for Switch and Presence capability)
RM rule to set Guest Presence and present or not present:
- Conditions
-- Guest Fob 1 present
-- Guest Fob 2 present
-- Guest Fob 1 Enable on
-- Guest Fob 2 Enable on - Rule
-- (Guest Fob 1 present
-- AND
-- Guest Fob 1 Enable on)
-- OR
-- (Guest Fob 2 present
-- AND
-- Guest Fob 2 Enable on) - Actions when True
-- Guest Presence on - Actions when False
-- Guest Presence off
Then for my modes, I just add the presence capability of Guest Presence switch to the conditions for changing modes.
Most of my automations require a āHumansā presence sensor to be present to run (just the way I have configured them)
I use Presence Central to combine the presence of my wife, myself and guest into one virtual presence plus device called Humans
Therefore if any of us are at home the automations run (or donāt depending how they are configured) because āHumansā is present (and as itās a switch too itās also āonā)
Andy
Nice idea. I would probably keep the motion lighting automations running. My cat roams around the house when we're not home and makes it look like the house is occupied
My dogs do the same for me... never need āvacationā lighting when you have dogs or cats
Is there anyway to setup a switch that can trigger a virtual presence device by voice command through google home? I attempted to setup a Rule with a virtual switch and virtual presence device but I found no way in RM to trigger the virtual presence device's status present/away when the virtual switch was on/off.
My idea is that I would just have a "guest mode" that I could enable/disable by voice. I would then integrate the virtual presence with mode manager to control if HE was set to away mode or not.
Try the āVirtual Presence Plusā driver.
This is basically a virtual device which alexa etc will see as a switch but itās also presence sensor...
On = Present
Off = Not present
Driver is here...
Andy
Thanks this was exactly what I was looking for!