[UPDATED] iPhone WiFi Presence Sensor

This discussion got me to thinking about my Alexa app on my phone. I know it has Geo-fencing capability. I just created a virtual switch and setup a routine in the app to turn it on or off when I arrive and leave home. I wonder how accurate it will be? Like most of you I have found the HE presence works most of the time(75%), but is not great. The WIFI presence has helped, but maybe this will be better.

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Something that really help me wrap my brain around this was really taking to heart what @jwetzel1492 has been saying and looking at each of these inputs as "events" not states.

What I mean by that, is forgetting if the Wifi presence is 'accurate' or even if Alexa or Homekit or the Mobile Hubitat stats are "accurate" as none of them will ever be, but instead focusing on which "new states" are the most accurate.

E.g. What really matters is that either my Wifi, Alex or Homekit in my case accurately triggers when I arrive home. I really need one to trigger well. Doesn't really matter if their states are then correct or not, it's that it gets triggered reliably.

For going away from the home, the GPS ones (Alex or Homekit), I really just need one of them to trigger accurately when I leave.

That has made my setup super reliable thinking about it that way.

I hope it helps others

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Yesssssss :slight_smile:

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Just FYI this works pretty well. Granted I have only had it going for a day but it seems accurate and quick. Will have to give it a week or two before I can say for sure. One added bonus is I now also have a presence sensor that I can set to different locations. I set up my work address and now I can trigger rules when I get to the office.

The down side is I can't figure out how to setup the same thing on my wife's phone. I can't setup a routine on her phone, because with the Alexa app you can't share smart home devices. I haven't figured it out yet anyway.

[edit]Figured out a way to get my wife's phone to use this as well. So we will see how it works, it was spot on today.

I just installed this along with combined presence on my OnePlus 7T Pro. The WiFi presence detection seems to be working for now. Will report back if I find any inconsistencies.

Mind sharing how you did this? In our house we ended up sharing the same alexa login, but wondering if there is now an alternative.

It seemed to work when I tested it but in practice it has yet to work. The problem was not the triggering of the HE switch but the location trigger in the Alexa app. My wife is working from home so she isn't leaving the house much. I think my last setup should have fixed it but she still has not left yet, so I can know for sure.

Anyway what I used for the action was the custom option. On her phone she does not get the list of smart home devices. Under the custom option you type in a statement for what you want Alexa to do. As of a few months ago we can speak a command to an Alexa device and it responds to the smart home devices no matter which account ifs logged in on that device. So I typed in Turn on or off Switch, using the HE name of the switch you want to turn on or off. When I manually tested the action it changed the state of the HE switch.

We should be leaving the house together this afternoon, after I get home so I will see if it worked or not. I also need to see how it works once she is not connected to our local home network. I have a VPN setup on our phones, so being on another wireless network should have no effect.

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That's awesome. I had not see this before. Thank you for pointing it out.
Excited to hear if it works or not.

My wife and I use the same Alexa login, as do our 4 children. You can add everyone to Alexa so that once they log in, the Alexa app will prompt them to select who they are. This way they all can access smart home devices via the Alexa app and it makes it easy to set up geolocation events.
I used this early on, but ditched it after setting up Homebridge, since Apple’s built in geofencing has very little impact on battery life and has been the most reliable indicator of presence for our six iPhones. The HE app remains the worst indicator and frequently gets stuck. I only have it on my iPhone, just in case it improves someday :disappointed:

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My wife and I don't want to use the same account, so that is not an option.

It did not work when we left this afternoon, but It is working now. It ask you which device it will respond on and I initially set it to "This mobile Device". That didn't seem to work, I then selected one of the echo devices in the house, and when we returned home the the virtual switch I set up to indicate if she is home or not set almost as soon as we pulled in the driveway.

We will have to see how it goes over the next few weeks, but it looks promising.

In contrast, for me it has been by far the best. It's been 100% reliable, tagged with the WiFi sensor and the app. I literally can't fault it and can't remember the last time I had a issue (18 months +?). Now with sods law I have now just shot my self in the foot for saying this, so watch this space.

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I just got a new iPhone today, so I’ll see if it’s better on this. My old one is a 7 plus.

I also don't touch that horrible word :rofl::rofl:

My kids got some applesauce on my keyboard once and it completely ruined it.

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Not everyone like to give Google total access to their life, so iPhone is a good choice in that case. :+1:

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Agreed, but giving your life to Apple is not much better IMO and at least with android you can tear every part of Google out if you wish via third party software, there is no such option with apple if you are privacy focused.

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One of my oldest friends is now CEO of a well known IT security company, they banned Android phones and devices from their offices.

When I asked him why, his description was priceless, “Android is corporate spyware. The Play store is chock full of malware, ransomware and spyware and the platform is entirely untrustworthy and insecure “.

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Why would the WiFi presence sensor return a "present" response, when it should be "not present"
"One phone failed today, as in presence kept saying "present" when I knew for a fact we were outside of geofence and far away from wifi.

This was in the log:
dev:4422020-12-18 16:48:35.097 debugRAW Moto WiFi: httpGetCallback(The following 'connection refused' result means that the hub was SUCCESSFUL in discovering the phone on the network: {"headers":null,"warningMessages":[],"status":408,"errorMessage":"Connect to 192.1xx.xx.xxx:80 [/192.1xx.xxx.xxx] failed: Connection refused (Connection refused)","errorData":null}, data)

Do you have your phone set to a static ip? Is it possible another device took the ip?

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