The thing I like about using IFTT is that you can have it email you, text you, notify you via push or even call you.
I have it text/call me for something critical such as water leak or alarm tripping because you can add the contact to your favorites list and get the notifications even if you have DND enabled (iOS stuff).
Other apps I don't think get around the DND that way.
Thinking about it... you don't really need a mobile app for presence. As long as your mobile device is joined to your house WiFi, then it strikes me that a pretty simple Hubitat app could periodically do an arp lookup for the phone's MAC addres and a quick ping to establish if the device is currently on the network at the moment. It's not sophisticated, but providing you've got WiFi coverage to the extremities of your house, I don't see why that wouldn't work.
I've just finished work for the Christmas holidays, so I might have a quick bash at that in the next few days, if it turns out my groovy is up to it 
-- Jules
I can't speak for iOS but on Android, Pushover allows this through priority settings and app config.
That’s sort of how I do it in my house. You really need to have location and presence working together, otherwise it’s going to think you’re back if your phone suddenly drops off Wi-Fi and then comes back on.
I use homebridge/HomeKit for the location part but you can definitely use IFTTT. It works well and it’s fast for that particular function.
No need to bash at it. There are solutions out there already for lan presence detection. You will probably need to setup a node server though as you can't arp or ping from the hub via groovy.
The other downside with lan presence is that phones drop off the network when they are sleeping. My iphones can drop off as long as 15 minutes at a time. Android phones I believe can have this disabled but it will affect battery life.
So a combination of geo and lan is a great method to setup.
Ya.. I was playing with that today. Pushover doesn't override anything on ios. Its just another notification. Emergency just means keep sending me notifications.
Hence an App would be more reliable for presence.
You would send an event packet to a app id/phone id that would report his statius + geo location to the hub when joining the wifi network
Yup. Which I am hoping they look to include. Along with targeted notifications. The rest could just be a wrapper for their dashboard.
But we need to give them time. It’s a small team and they have a lot of other things on the go that need to be fixed first. An app is a big load on them. They would need to make one for iOS and android as well as test and support it on many phones with every update. I have a lot of respect for these app devs after seeing what they have to deal with.
They are watching th me forums closely so they know what’s up and have said it’s in the plans.
Depending on your use case / definition of Location or Presence detection. The only way to perform presence/location without a 3rd party service would be to use Zigbee, Z-Wave or Wifi none of which are any good outside of the house and many have had good luck with Wifi off their routers and many have not....so it's still a toss up there.
For a 3rd party there are a couple I know of that do NOT store and sell your data. Simplex Locate and AccuTracking. Both services have PUSH capabilities that work with Maker API.
Yeap they need time.
They will get there eventually
Nope. The joys of the closed off ecosystem.
Hmmm. OK.
I haven't really got enough into groovy to know what it can do network wise... but by the time I need to deploy another server or similar, we're getting outside the limits of what's convenient to do to my mind. Equally, a 15-minute latency wouldn't kill me for presence detection, but then it would be a question of knowing that it had been seen in that timescale.
Is SNMP an option, perhaps? Query the border router's ARP table, and actually, that's not a bad proxy either, depending on the aging of the records. I suppose not everybody has a border router that'd play ball.
50 posts were merged into an existing topic: Alternatives to using ST presence
I was a bit concerned also about no iThing App, but I have found the browser based solution to be very handy. It works on all my weird platforms and works the save way. I like it.
Newbie question here, but I’ve been searching and can’t seem to find any info. How hard is it to set up IFTTT to call you with a message. I have issues with IOS DND and like the idea of using a phone call with a predetermined message if HSM triggers a fire or break In.
It's actually really easy to do in IFTTT. Just connect to the Phone Call (US Only) service on IFTTT and enter in your phone number. Your phone will ring and once you answer, a pin code will be delivered. Once you enter that pin into IFTTT, phone calls are enabled.
On the Hubitat side, you'll need to create a rule to trigger a virtual device that IFTTT can pick up on:
IFTTT is a joke. My aplets always just sorta slowly stop working over the course of a few months, so i'm always having to go in and tinker with them to renew them. Over time I have been slowly whittled them down to only a few. All I use it for now is to mute my phone and turn off the wifi at work and arm/disarm my blink cameras when I leave or arrive home.
Download the Hubitat app
