Presence FOB

I've been searching high and low for a presence device that I can carry on my key chain that tells Hubitat that I'm home without me having to push a button to get it to see me. I use my iPhone and geofencing but it's sketchy at best and it makes it hard to use HSM without the reliability.

Has anyone found something that works for someone as lazy as me? =)

The Samsung Arrival Sensor.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-smartthings-arrival-sensor-white/4481808.p?skuId=4481808

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Could use a tile mate. Though, you might need multiple Bluetooth LE sensors around your home to make it always think you're there.

We use these and they seem to work great, much better than using the phone app. The battery life is kinda bad though. I'm probably going to modify them to use AA batteries at some point.

Just curious though, are there any viable alternatives that use zigbee? I have a tendency to break key fobs and would like to know that I have options in the future when the SmartThings sensor is no longer available.

ST fobs are off the market apparently. Any recent developments for fobs? I want to give houseguests a key and fob so they can come and go as they like.

They actually are now being made by Aeon Labs along with the other ST items but they come and go inventory wise.

If you need an immediate work around I have some brand new Iris V1 key fobs that will work fine. $20 plus shipping. Bonus, they have 2 programmable buttons available for other rules.

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@bbbnnn @scunny These are fantastic. Probably small enough for a keychain but given the almost 1/8-1/4 mile range I consistently am getting on these...I leave it in my glove box.

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Very interesting though not a fob. Thanks @rlithgow1

This might work. Thanks @scunny

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They're not the prettiest device in the arsenal but they work great. Pics for comparison.


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It's very small and able to be put on a keychain and rechargeable.

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How much does it cost?

I paid about $30 for it. Contact @iharyadi , he makes them. It's a great device. @aaiyar also has been really happy with it.

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Just in case, here's a link to my latest very successful project:

Is this a presence fob?

I am using these BT Beacos as an arrival sensors for unlockin and
opening front door. However they could be used as a per room
presence sensors. Please keep in mind, you will need Home Assistant
and ESP32 with espresence installed.

Thanks to @rlithgow1 for the shout out to my Arrival Sensor.

Just to share my thought on BLE. I did consider using BLE (Bluetooth tracker) for my arrival sensor when I started my Arrival Sensor project. BLE has superior battery consumption versus Zigbee especially when used as tracker. I also have a chance to build the tracker and receiver if you see my post. Based on my experience on making them, I am afraid to use the tracker for access control. A simple BLE tracker does not do any authentication. It is also NOT encrypted. It is very easy to duplicate the tracker packets over the air. One can re-playing the packets. If you use it to open a garage door, I would say anyone with BLE capable MCU can open that door.

BLE tracker is good for presence as long the action taken from the detected presence is providing information versus giving access.

ZIgBee is not the most secure protocol. There are some vulnerability. But, at least it will perform authentication before a ZIgBee device enter the mesh. In addition, all communication is encrypted. If I were to do BLE for access control, I would look into at least an encrypted BLE tracker with some sort public/private key authentication. This is still rare. I heard someone hacked apple tracker(AT) protocol. the AT is one example of secure BLE tracker.

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Yes, you are correct - BLE Tracker does not have enough security and could be duplicated.
But regardless I am using BLE Trackers (two of them) for front door access control.
The reason is - this was/is only one thing which works relatively fast, under 5 sec.
I tried WiFi Connect, BT Connect drivers but the best response time was around 40 sec
(usually almost 100 sec). In my case this is unacceptable.
So, the convenience vs potential compromised security took over.
And because we are not carrying out cell phones with us all the time I need small
form factor fobs.

BT Beacon(s) by themself are not opening the door.
They are creating 2 min window (I guess, it could be reduced to 30 sec, or so).
Actual access is given by MS Sensor only if it triggers within this given time window.
And I am still thinking hard how to improve security but without compromising
convenience and the response time. Any ideas are very welcome.

I just want to make sure that we understand the fundamental issue with BT tracker. It is that anyone with ESP32 can record the tracker packets. It then can re-play the packets at later time which may be outside the 2 minutes window.

One can use BT tracker like a key. While with physical key, one may have to have a physical copy to duplicate it. I personally will not give my key to a stranger. Unfortunately, with BT tracker, you do not need to have the physical BT tracker to make an exact duplicate. Any stranger near by your BT tracker can copied it and make a duplicate of it.

I am not sure how would you solve this issue. If you have tips and trick to countermeasure this weakness. I personally like to learn about them.

I guess (but I am not sure) it could be even ready to go Android/Apple app which can record
these BT Beacons.

Yes, but in this case absolutely nothing will happened.

Oh yes, this could be a case.
The good news, I am living in the apartment complex with building level security.
And (I hope) there are not many people with necessary skills around.
This is why I think my security level is somewhat good (I hope).

Unfortunately there is no solid solution for this problem at a moment.
But, if I am not to lazy I can turn off beacons when they are not in use and
turn them on only right before arriving. But doing this is an extra headache
and I am to...o lazy to do this (maybe I should).
I am still thinking how to improve the "arrival" algorithm but unfortunately
don't have any good idea which will not either require additional HW or will
not compromise the response time (this is a BIG deal and WAF).