Locative Presence app for iOS full setup

Why Hubitat Elevation Here's a cool thing I did!
22

I agree, this is a great guide. While I've been using this Locative / Maker API setup for about two weeks, it seems to be rock solid. I hope more people come across this topic and realize this setup works great.

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23

Great tutorial @steve.maddigan. I think I might add this since I can't find a way to change the geofence in the home app.

For those using HomeKit, I've been using the apple home app for presence detection using automations in a very similar way to how OP has set up Locative. The nice part is I don't have to confirm running the automation when I arrive and leave, it just happens magically in the background. More info on that topic here:

https://community.hubitat.com/t/arrive-home-iphone-presence/104581

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24

Noob question here. Since Life360 is out, I wanted an alternative to know when my family member enter or exit a location.

I followed your great documentation and found it simplier than geofency.

My question, do I have to install locative to the other phones and create the locations which I already have on mine? Cant the locations I created on my phone be used by others?

Need help trying to find an slternative to Life360.

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Yes. Each phone that uses locative needs to have geofence locations configured with the http request to send to your hub when the phone crosses the geofence.

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26

Remember, one of the benefits of Locative is that it is an app that only exists on your phone. There is no Locative Cloud service, whatsoever. Thus, your location data is kept 100% local to your phone. It allows multiple geofences to be created, and the webhooks for each as you enter and leave.

So, while a little less convenient than Life360 was, at least there is no third party cloud service between your phone and your Hubitat cloud endpoint (yes, Hubitat does run a cloud server to allow this to work, but unlike Life360, they arenā€™t trying to lock their own users out of it! :sunglasses:)

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27

Bingo. Exactly.

28

I'm looking for another presence solution now the Life360 has stopped working. Is there a similar setup tutorial for HomeKit?

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This is the post I used to get up and running a long time ago. The only difference is, now you donā€™t need HomeBridge.

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30

Thanks for the tutorial on Locative, will give it a shot. Apple/Shortcuts/HomeKit etc seems to be getting flakey.

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31

Just a word of encouragement, I gave up on Lif360 and have been using Locative about a week now, it's been spot on reliable. Enjoy.

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32

Iā€™ve found HomeKit controlling Hubitat virtual presence switches to new very reliable.

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Are you using Homebridge or Hubitat HK integration for the virtual switches?

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I used to use HomeBridge, but Iā€™m using the native Hubitat HomeKit integration now.

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Thanks and virtual presence sensors or virtual presence with switches?

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These - the switch can be exposed from Hubitat to HomeKit so then you can use the HomeKit automation to flip the switch.

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37

I was intimidated at first by this walkthrough, but it was perfect. Thank you. I do have a question: Locative is installed on 2 iphones, if 1 leaves and the other stays, how is the rule set up so the automation doesn't run unless both phones depart? And on the flip side, how what should the setup be to make the "someone's home" automation run when just one of the phones arrive and not have it run again when the 2nd phone arrives?
Thanks

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38

I am happy that you successfully set it up.

You should set up a virtual presence device for each phone. It is unclear from you post if you have done that. You can use the same MakerAPI for the second presence device, it will just have a different device id number.

Once you have the two separate virtual presence devices, you can trigger a RM on change. You can have one RM that triggers on both and then makes decisions based on both.

Or a single RM for each presence sensor that can check the state of the other.

There are many ways you can do this and it will be very unique to the devices you have installed.

You will get a better reply to this part of your question if you make a new general post instead of on this locative thread.

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39

Outside of allowing multiple geofences to be created, are there any additional advantages to using the Locative app vs. the Hubitat app for presence sensing?

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TL/DR - If the Hubitat Mobile Appā€™s geofencing presence works reliable for you, then no reason to set up Locative unless you want multiple geofence locations.

Years ago, when I first explored using Locative with Hubitat, Hubitat had not released a mobile phone app whatsoever. Since that time, they have released two mobile apps, the second of which was just released in the last week.

For me, the early revisions of the first mobile app for iOS was not reliable for geofencing. Thus, I continued to use Locative.

Later, once Hubitat added built-in support for Apple HomeKit, I switched to using Apple Home automations for geofence-based presence.

I have not tried geofencing in later versions of the first Hubitat mobile app for iOS. Nor have I tried it in the recently released new iOS mobile app. Thus, I cannot speak to the reliability of those apps for presence detection.

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41

In my recent experience Locative is more reliable than iOS or the new Hubitat app. I have all of those and then some set up and Locative is the only one that seems to get it right 99.9% of the time.

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