Homebridge is certainly an option, but I would +1 @ogiewon’s suggestion re: locative.
If you get WiFi presence, locative and ST mobile presence setup setup in presence governor, that should be more than adequate.
Homebridge would only be worth the additional setup if you wanted to use other Hubitat devices in the Apple Home app as well, IMHO.
And if you include Life360 in the mix, you should definitely have a functional presence solution. But I decided to drop Life360 because they seem to be the most invasive in terms of tracking and selling your location data.
I use iOS. And I have tried out homebridge, for both presence and to get hubitat devices into the Home app. It’s fine, but it means running an always-on server plus an always-on Apple TV/iPad.
For mobile presence, my personal preference would be to exhaust the solutions that can be accomplished with iOS apps and apps/drivers that run directly on the Hubitat hub.
I may still try homebridge again in the future, but that’s if I decide I actually want Siri or Home app control of Hubitat devices.
Yeah, I guess if you're not already running a RPi for something or a computer for something, then that might be a big deal. I run mine on an old MacBook Pro, which uses very little power for this kind of stuff. It runs Google Assistant Relay, CastWeb API and my Insteon Websocket, so one more app running on it was a no-brainer for me.
Neither of these have to be awake. I can get behind not leaving your iPad plugged in all the time and killing the battery if it's one that gets used frequently and you still care about it. But for Apple TV 4 as a HomeKit hub, they don't have a true "OFF" state anyway. They are always in a low power mode when you are not watching them. HomeKit automations work just fine in that mode. Power consumption for the non-4K Apple TV 4 is 0.3 watts at standby, and 2.1 watts during normal operation, with a max of 4 watts.
I've debated for a long time as to whether or not I should share this observation as it is anecdotal.
My wife and I switched to Android phones last year, but keep our old iPhone 6's, without sim cards, for other purposes. I never bothered to remove the mobile devices from HE but did take them out of all automations. She plays games on her's, and I display a Wyze Cam when I'm at my desk. Apps are still updated (including the HE mobile app), but iOS is at 12.4.5.
Periodically, I like to look at my router's logs to see what or who has been trying to connect to my network, but wading through all of the re-connect entries(every 15 mins +/- from my wife's iPhone when asleep) was annoying.
Why did her iPhone do that and mine didn't? The only difference between them is her's was on the 5G band and mine was on the 2.4.
Interestingly, when I looked at the event logs for the HE mobile devices, my iPhone had been present for about two months, her's had been toggling dozens of times a day. We connected her phone to the 2.4 band and 'Forgot' the 5G band in the wifi settings and to my amazement, the wifi disconnects/reconnects stopped and her HE mobile device has remained present for several weeks.
As I said, this is anecdotal. I'm curious if someone who's having issues with HE mobile app presence, an up-to-date iPhone with up-to-date firmware and a sim card, were to limit their phone to only 2.4 wifi, would they see a difference in behavior?
Haha I'm very lurkey lately.
I'm really biting my tongue with all the spicy conversations going on today because I have achieved Hubitat - Home Assistant nirvana and a know it's not for everyone.
I liked your post because I recently found HOOBS and like it a lot, I just wish I could run it as an x86 container.
I like my setup a lot too. Multiple hubs and gateways tied togehter with websockests and HomeKit. Not everyones cup of tea, but I totally know what you mean by nirvana. So good when it just works eh?
Yeah, that's my apprehension about trying Hoobs too. If I really like it, I know my little RPi Zero W is going to be too underpowered, so then I need to spring for a RPi 4 (I know myself). And the truth is, it's going to get me nothing that will be all that helpful to improving on the sweet setup I have going right now. It's the same with these new Xiaomi hubs. I almost bought the Mijia Multimode hub last night because I'm super interested in the evolution of the Bluetooth Mesh and I guess with the drop in sales due to the virus, they're dirt cheap right now. Reality is, it will do absolutely nothing for me right now, and in fact it would remove two functions I have right now with the Xiaomi Aqara hub. Plus, there's not much in devices that support that functionality, so it's too early. Must-restrain-self
I'm using ST arrival sensors with good luck, but like all ST devices, you need to have a hub kicking around somewhere that you can power up occasionally if you want to do any firmware upgrades. The arrival sensors worked out of the box for me however. Downside is that they are separate devices that you need to carry around. Upside is that presence has a lot of uses: I have modified one and attached it to my trashcan so we can get a smart reminder if the garbage hasn't been taken to the curb on pickup days.
The documentation, that I created awhile ago, is listed in the post above where I suggested you give Locative a try. It is simply a post in the Locative thread where I had figured out how to make it work. Since that time, Locative has had a few upgrades, so there may be some tweaks to the procedure on the phone side of things. The Hubitat side would be the same.
I still have my ST Hub just for presence. I just connected everything to HomeKit via HOOBS and I might give HomeKit a chance and detecting my presence.
Short answer: No. I have Iris 2nd generation Smart Fobs and they are almost foolproof. Once in a while, they don't pick up right away when we get home and HE's HSM will start beeping the pre-alarm. I usually hit the fob's disarm buttin, but that is only once every few months. Most of the time, it does detect that we are home by the time I park and we unlock the front door. It also has not (except when the battery has died) said we were away when we were at home or at home when we were away.
The Iris 2nd gen Smart Fobs are hard to find now. I am not sure about some of the other options. We have several Iris 1st gen Key Fobs also, but they are currently not being used. They also were pretty reliable.
