Thinking all night about Geofence

Good morning
I have been having problems with Geofence for a week now.
Up until now I have been using the one from the HE app and it was working fine. (I have Android)
So when it started giving me problems I thought of installing a different app.
But.
is the app the problem?
Is there any real improvement by changing apps?
Isn't the satellite management of the phone the problem?
If HE doesn't see that I've arrived is it the phone's fault that it was asleep when I passed the Geofence?
How did you guys overcome the problem?
Did you overcome it?

In general, those using specialized geofencing apps seem to have the least issues with geofence-based triggers. Such apps include Life360 and OwnTracks.

2 Likes

+1 for life360

I was using it prior to the HE app and switched back to it a year ago December. It just works.

2 Likes

AHAH Just installed OwnTrack
OK i will test it for some days
Then if it don't work i will try Life360 also if i don't like to register in 200 palces

2 Likes

I have used OwnTracks since the pandemic shutdown started (~March of last year). It has never failed. I set off automations based on reaching various waypoints, including home, work, the grocery store, my doctor's office etc. etc.

1 Like

the real problem is not that it fails.
the problem is that it is slow, if my fence is 300m it notices that I am dento when I am close to 0 meters

1 Like

Ahh. Well, I can say that OwnTracks is fast.

1 Like

I let you know in few days

1 Like

I just checked my life360 settings. I have it set up for 162m (it’s a slide and hard to set at a specific number) and I get the confirmation notification via pushover that the arrival rule has triggered before I enter my cul-de-sac.

2 Likes

Emmm first test fail
is 15 minute that i'm back at home 20 that i'm in the fence
and the OnwTrack tell i'm out of the region
closing and opening again the app it update and say i'm at home.
:sweat:

IOS or Android?

1 Like

Android

+1 for Life260 as well. I ripped my hair out over at ST for the last few years with presence faling so I went to Life360. Presence was fine with my Android until Sammy came along.
Over here the HE presence is not consistent either so Life360 (and community driver support) make all the difference.

1 Like

I had a lot of issues with Hubitat's geofencing as well. Was quite annoyed that it's advertised as a 'feature' however it never worked reliably. I finally used a community app called something like 'combined presence' and another one called something like 'iphone presence' (it works for any mobile phone and basically watches for your phone connecting or disconnecting from your wifi network).

Through the combined presence app, it changes a virtual presence device to away only if I'm out of the Hubitat geofence, life 360 geofence, and disconnected from wifi. This eliminates the false away situations where all my lights would turn off and the alarm would arm when I was sitting in my living room. Then any of the 3 (Hubitat geofence return, life 360 return, or wifi connect) tells the virtual presence sensor that someone is home.

My setup has been very reliable this way but still annoying I had to go to this extent and use 2 community apps to get a 'feature' to work that Hubitat advertises as a 'feature' out of the box.

I'm still thinking that the phone matter

You'll also want to make sure any battery saving or battery optimizing is turned off for the Hubitat mobile app and any other geofencing you're using (like life360). My wife has a Huawei phone; it has amazing battery life but it agressively kills apps running in the background such as Hubitat and life360. I had to turn off all battery optimizations on her phone for those apps, pin those apps in her recent apps list and then use tasker to launch those apps every night at 4am to keep them running day to day.

1 Like

The WiFi presence work well
Only the Geofence have problem

Luckily, with 4 people living here, I'm less likely to create that kind of excitement for myself :slight_smile:. But yeah, that would be startling.

2 Likes

I've been using Owntracks on my Android. Works perfectly for me, haven't seen it mess up (but I don't check it constantly, of course).

Takes a little work to set up but since then has been set it and forget it simple.

2 Likes

I did some tests and i need your opinions:

starting at the beginning.
I noticed that Geofence wasn't working for me because I'm trying to use it this way:
From Dashboard on my phone I book entry into the house by activating a switch.
When the geofence trigger arrives, if book entry is ON, I activate gate opening. (My gate needs 2 minutes to open, it's slow).
So I give the command when I am about 250 meters away.

End of the hat.

What did I notice?
If I make the reservation for the entrance (book antry) by opening the dashboard from the HE app the geofence works.
If I do it from the cloud link it doesn't.
Perhaps by opening the HE app I also activate the location check, whereas if I only open the cloud link from the dashboard this doesn't happen, and my phone doesn't notify me of my arrival.
What do you guys think?

Note:
OwnTrack in any case, even if I open the app on my phone, it tells me I'm home when I'm already in the shower.