Locative Presence app for iOS full setup

[steve.maddigan]

Locative is a great app for presence sensing but is only available for iPhones.

I previously used Life360 free version for over a year without any issues. I noticed that it would typically consume about 1% of my iPhone battery per day. I was not concerned with the privacy issues of being tracked.

About a year and a half ago I saw a post by @ogiewon mentioning Locative.

The cool thing about Locative - your phone decides when it is inside or outside your defined locations and only when your phone senses a transition, does it send any data. And that data only goes to a Hubitat cloudlink for your Maker API app that you have running on your hub,

The result is - no one gets your constant location data and unless you open the Locative app on your phone, it will not even show up on the Battery usage page!

Dan helped me originally get Locative installed and operational. Since then i have helped a few others to get it up & running. There are a few threads with partial information to get it working:

Use Locative for Presence

I'm new to Hubitat and would like to see Hubitat support the use of Locative for presence until the mobile app with presence is available or as another option. I'm using Life360 right now but don't find it ideal and have privacy concerns with giving yet another 3rd party access to my location 24/7. Locative uses HTTP(S)-URL (either via GET or POST requests) and I believe it would be a better fit in keeping with Hubitat's local control philosophy.

Locative for presence sensing

@steve.maddigan , could you pls help me to understand how this can be integrated?

But these threads do not have a full start to finish setup for the locative app. And it seems that not many people talk / use it. So just throwing a step-by-step together to get it up and running.

The app is here and it is free: ‎Locative: Geofence and Beacon on the App Store

But the first half of this setup is all done on the pc.

PART ONE - HE setup

1. Create a virtual presence deviceby clicking on Device, + Add device, and then Under
   

   

2. Under Add device manually: Click Virtual
   

   

3. 1 - Select Virtual Presence
   2 - Name your virtual presence sensor
   

   

4. You should now see a new virtual device like this.
   

   

5. Open a new tab, click Apps, and +Add built-in app
   

   

6. Select Maker API
   

   

7. 1 - Give your Maker API app a name (you can change this later as well)
   2 - Allow Access via Remote / Cloud and disable Access via Local IP Address
   3 - Select the virtual presence sensor that you created in step 4
   4 - Turn off Allow control of modes and Allow control of HSM
   

   

8. Scroll down a bit and click Get All Devices
   

   

9. A new tab should open. This line has the Device ID of your Virtual Presence device. Select the whole line and copy it
   

   

10. Open a txt editor like notepad and paste the line
    

    

11. Back on your Maker API app tab select & copy the complete line under Cloud URLS: Get Device Info
    

    

12. Paste that a few lines down in the same txt file
    A couple notes:
    1 - In my case i have replaced api cloud key with all xxxx's but you will have real hex numbers here.
    2 - the green arrow points to the Maker API app on my HUB. Your number will be different. That is ok. Do not use my number on your hub. It will not work.
    3 - Again the blue circle indicates the device number of your presence sensor. Do not use my number, you must use yours
    

    

13. This is how you need to edit your Arrival and Departure URLs
    Your Device number in your first line replaces the [Device ID] ... including the brackets
    Then you simply put a forward slash arrived or a forward slash departed before the ?access..
    

    

So my finished URLs are:

Arrival
https://cloud.hubitat.com/api/xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx/apps/1860/devices/1833/arrived?access_token=8acade11-3937-4f28-9b36-61bcee2cebc1

Departure
https://cloud.hubitat.com/api/xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx/apps/1860/devices/1833/departed?access_token=8acade11-3937-4f28-9b36-61bcee2cebc1

14. Go back to your Maker API tab, scroll to the bottom and hit Done

15. Open up your new Virtual Presence Device and leave it open. If you haven't hit the Arrival or Departed buttons, it should still show present
    

    

16. Go back to your txt editor and copy the complete URL for Departure starting with https:// to the end of the access token and paste it into a new browser tab and hit enter. You should see a response in the browser window similar to this
    

    

17. And your presence status should change to not present
    

    

18. I really recommend you test the URL for Arrival as well.

19. Cut and Paste both your arrival & departure URLs in an email and send it to your phone. This way you can cut & paste them right into the Locative app when we get to that point of the setup.

Part TWO - setting up the Locative app in iOS is in the next post

[steve.maddigan]

PART TWO - configuring the iOS app

The free version of the app allows you to have up to 20 locations defined.

1. As you can see I already have three locations defined, but i will be setting up a new location with the new URLs i created in Part One. This is the screen you get when you start the app. I suggest clicking on the Setting icon at the bottom to make sure things are configured properly.
   

   

2. I don't remember how things were set when i originally launched the app. Please just configure your screen the same as mine and then click the Locations icon at the bottom.
   

   

3. Click on the + sign in the upper right corner to add a new location.
   

   

4. This may take a couple seconds, but the app will fetch your current location. If it is taking too long or you want to enter a location other than your current location, Hit the magnifying glass and enter an address.
   

   

5. 1 - Once you have an address in there
   2 - The radius of the sphere can be adjusted with the + & - or
   3 - the slider
   4 - you can also press & hold the push pin to pick it up & relocate it
   

   

6. Scroll down and change BOTH the Webhook on arrival and Webhook on departure from POST to GET. It will not work if you do not make this change. They MUST be set to GET
   

   

7. 1 - From the email that you sent in the last step of PART ONE, copy and past the complete Arrival URL here
   2 - and the complete Departure URL here
   3 - hit Save in the upper right corner
   

   

8. Open up the Virtual presence device on your computer and make sure it is set on NOT present. If not, hit the Departure button
   

   

9. Back on your iPhone, on your newly created Location, press & hold somewhere to the right of the Geofence indicator
   

   

10. Click on Trigger "Enter" Event
    

    

11. Your Device page should update to present
    

    

12. 1 - Beside the Geofence indicator there should now show the Entered indicator
    2 - Again press and hold on the location
    

    

13. And this time click on Trigger "Exit" Event
    

    

14. Your Driver page should have updated again to NOT present
    

    

15. 1 - And you should now have the LEFT indicator on your location
    

    
    
    2 - You can click on Notifications along the bottom to see a logging of Events
    
    

16. You may want to turn off wifi on your phone and repeat steps 9 through 15 to ensure that it is just not working when you are on wifi

17. Make sure you have your presence set correctly before you actually enter/leave your Location or you will not get the presence update on the very first event.

[dJOS]

Great guide!

One question tho, why not just use HomeKit? All you need is 1 Hubitat hybrid virtual presence device per person, and 2 HomeKit rules. Eg

[marktheknife]

Locative can be used with multiple locations, and you can configure it to have different radii for enter and exit of a geofence around one spot. I find that particularly helpful since I live in a city.

[dJOS]

Ah nice!

[steve.maddigan]

I now have HomeKit - I bought a HomePod mini and set up the integration when they first brought out the beta.

So I do have the rules set up on my phone and my sons. Wife doesn’t have a phone.

I do use the HomeKit for my son’s presence but as @marktheknife pointed out, I have three locations set up in Locative.

I have a presence driver that also holds location for use in RM.

And a guy on FB doesn’t have HomeKit.

[dJOS]

@steve.maddigan

Wife doesn’t have a phone.

Yeah that can be a pain. I get around this with guests and our cleaner by giving them their own house code which they enter on the front or back door keypad. That then activates a manual presence for them.

When they leave they just press the Arm button on the alarm panel on the way out.

[johnwill1]

I've been using locative on our iPhones for presence for over a year now I think. It started when I was having issues with Hubitat's built in presence and it was suggested I try Locative.

I must have got the instructions on this forum somewhere but they were different to those posted. I just set up the app on my iPhone and after creating the virtual device and enabling it in maker api I copied across a url from maker to 'Webhook on arrival' and 'webhook on departure' in the app.

[wj72]

Thanks for this effort @steve.maddigan I am looking forward to trying it. I have been using Homekit presence which is nearly perfect but it almost always too slow triggering the arrival which has been annoying. Hopefully Locative is better in this respect.

[bobbyD]

@marktheknife donated the second post on this thread, so I moved PART TWO as the second post.

[steve.maddigan]

Thank you @bobbyD
I now know why people reserve a couple posts!!

[steve.maddigan]

I will post a couple log examples of arrival/departure timings from my logs since I have them both running.

[steve.maddigan]

I have an Alfred lock and I do just as you suggested.

[dJOS]

@steve.maddigan

I have an Alfred lock and I do just as you suggested

Nice, I think I got the idea from someone here on the forum a few years ago. It’s a simple and elegant solution.

[steve.maddigan]

@steve.maddigan

I will post a couple log examples of arrival/departure timings from my logs

Well I can not post logs with the time comparison because it seems my presence in HomeKit is no longer working.

The HomeKit presence is still working on my sons iPhone. When I hit the test buttons in HomeKit for my presence, it works. I have deleted the HomeKit automations and recreated them. Still nothing. Weird.

[ogiewon]

@steve.maddigan

I have deleted the HomeKit automations and recreated them. Still nothing. Weird.

Have you rebooted your AppleTVs and/or HomePods that are on your home network? One of them is the current Apple Home “Hub”. Also, make sure all of these are fully upgraded to the latest firmware. Since these are the devices that actually run the Apple Home Automations, perhaps one of them is messed up?

[steve.maddigan]

I only have one HomePod mini, purchased just for this integration, so I know exactly what device is operating as the integration ‘hub’.

Great idea and a little ashamed that I didn’t think of trying that before yelling help

FW could be an issue too. New to the home pod side of things. Googling that now.

[lairdknox]

@steve.maddigan

HomeKit is no longer working.

When that happens on my setup it turns out that the HomePods have switched to the StarLink network. If you have more than one SSID make sure the HomePod is on the same subnet as your phone. It is a bit of a rare occurrence but one that has bitten more than once.

[the-leafs]

Thanks for the setup guide, it seems to work well and looking forward to driving the wife crazy with announcements of my pending arrival and a cuppa needs to be put on!! Honestly that will last for one or two announcements and then I will be counselled on my poor choice of announcement.

[steve.maddigan]

re: Homekit presence no longer working for me ...

• power cycled HomePod mini
• verified FW was up to date
• Home app - Home Settings / Location Services = enabled (no idea if this toggles this or not)
• I have no idea how to see the HomePod IP from the Home app, but it's responding to pings on the IP it's supposed to be on and my netgear router is listing it as attached at the correct dhcp reserved IP.

Finally tested it this morning and still nothing.