I’m trying to find a way to track if any of he family members are home or away. Right now I do it with the phones, if the phones are connected to the wifi it senses their presence with the “Iphone Wifi Presece Sensor app” it works great with Android Phones they connect immediately, but the Iphones take a while and they also go in and out. Yes I changed the phone settings to the Phones real MAC address. I’m thinking of a battery operated Zigbee or Zwave Switch turned on, that I place in every vehicle. When the Garage door or entrance door opens I set the switche to off and again 20 minutes later. When the switch comes back and joins the network it triggers “on” and shows the person is home. Would that work. Do Zwave/Zigbee Switches rejoin the network after they left the network ?
I know the easiest way would be installing the mobile app on each phone I just don’t want everybody to have access to all the settings, if there would be a limited app just for tracking that would be great, but there is only one version that doesn’t have the option to limit access.
That’s a reasonable concern re: the Hubitat mobile app; there is no option to install it for other family members locked down with presence/push notifications only.
But if installing an app on each family member’s phone is an option, have you looked at the Hubitat integration with OwnTracks?
I have SmartThings presence sensors in the vehicles that are powered on 2xAA batteries. They last about 1-2 years and are super-reliable. You might still find them on eBay.
For iOS devices, I use Apple Home to manage presence. It is also very reliable.
I also have ST sensors with AA batteries and I use BLE tags as a backup for 2 of my cars and guests.
I’ve had no luck finding ST sensors that are reasonable $. They work well but a bit unobtanium.
They also don’t work on CH 11. I found out the hard way trying to resolve ZB interference issues and move to 11 only to realise I couldn’t join the ST sensors anymore.
What do you have that controls your network? A lot of them out there have at least a page that shows what devices are currently connected that could probably be polled/parsed by Hubitat, assuming they do not have an even better status/polling method. Some (like Ubiquiti) have systems that are very easy to detect the presence of devices based on when they are on the WiFi (from when they connect to the WiFi, not the device recognizing it is connected and notifying something).
Since your focus right now are Apple devices, have you considered letting HomeKit handle the presence detection and present a virtual presence with switch device to HomeKit from Hubitat and allow HK to turn the switch on/off when that person arrives/leaves home?
Thanks for the mention, @CAZ — glad it's been solid so far.
@hb_instruments, re: your original concern — family members install the PositionGuard app, not the Hubitat app, so there's no exposure to your hub or its settings at all on their end. They just see their own presence/sharing controls in a separate, unrelated app. Presence status comes into Hubitat as a native device — showing which named area someone's in, not an exact location — and nobody needs Hubitat access for that to work. Works on iPhone, and Android too if that's ever relevant for you.
Happy to answer anything specific about how it'd fit your setup — number of family members, anything like that.