Use Locative for Presence

[ogiewon]

@marcus.kida - Thank you for taking the time to join the Hubitat Community and to provide such amazing customer service! I am very glad to have paid for a lifetime Pro subscription to help keep this amazing product alive.

[marcus.kida]

Thank you all for these kind words. It‘s the least I could do, I don‘t want people to get the feeling of breaking something and then charging to get something back to a working state.

That said, as you might have noticed Locative is not my main source of income but it‘s something I‘m very passionate about and the In-App Purchases help me justify to invest time into it.

If you‘re missing features, or experiencing bugs feel free to hit me up.

Thank you all for being kind and showing this very solution-oriented attitude, unfortunately that‘s definitely not always the case online.

[KGB]

@marcus.kida Thanks so much for coming here and being involved in this forum. When I posted my issue yesterday, I never expected that the developer would come and be so responsive to everyone's questions. Your level of customer service is amazing!

[bobbles]

So going from these latest posts, the latest version of the 'Locative' app works OK.
The reason I'm asking is if you go back some way in this thread then the app was no longer maintained and would only work with HE with an old apk ver 3.2.0. Newer versions did not work.
I'm assuming that this is now not the case.

[ogiewon]

Locative has always worked for me on iOS. I have never tried it on Android.

[bobbles]

Perhaps it was only an android issue then. I have the old apk loaded and I'm using it OK so it's not an issue for me but since this thread has become active again I thought I would ask.

[aaiyar]

@bobbles

Perhaps it was only an android issue then.

@marcus.kida should comment, but I think that Locative for Android was developed by someone else.

Wrong. My Google-Fu needs improvement. Looks like the product was discontinued ~2014, but was developed by Marcus.

[marktheknife]

@ogiewon

Locative has always worked for me on iOS.

That’s been my experience as well.

[mikee385]

@ogiewon

It appears that the new v5 of Locative is defaulting to sending a bunch of data that Hubitat’s MakerAPI a isn’t going to handle very well. Unfortunately, the only way I have found to change this behavior to to pay to unlock the new “Request Designer” feature.

I had previously created my own custom app for working with Locative:

mikee385/hubitat-mikee385/blob/master/apps/presence-urls.groovy

I was originally accepting GET requests, but like you said, this broke in v5 with the extra payload that Locative started sending. I changed my app to accept POST requests, and everything worked perfectly again. No need to use the Request Designer!

[jcharruadas]

Hello All,

I am recent to hubitat and I am trying to sort my presence. I read a lot and having several presence inputs is the best strategy with the great Combined presence app. I read several people discussing Locative. I installed in my iPhone and even bought the plan for custom templates as I thought it was needed. And I still can't find the places to put URLs you refer at the top of this post. Could anyone please help with instructions from the start on how to configure the mobile app part? I see no fields in setting to input anything. (and I selected GET option)

P.S. - I used the 2 URLS discussed at the top in my computer browser after installing the Maker API, used the device ID that I created, and I got a successful json request . But how does this tie in with the mobile app?

Thank you in advance.
Cheers

[ogiewon]

In the Locative App on your phone, make sure to create a New Location (click the plus sign in the top right corner of the Locative app.) Once you do that, and you click on the location, you will be able to enter a "Webhook on arrival" and a "Webhook on departure". This is where the two MakerAPI url's are entered as GET commands.

[jcharruadas]

Thank you so much @ogiewon. I completely missed that! I created the location, but didn't enter it. I went straight to the App Settings instead. Now it is clear, and using the instructions at the top of this post I am able to run the arrived/departed action in my hub through the web hook. Tomorrow I will leave the house to test it! Thanks Habitat Community! Great!

[kerrylebel]

@marcus.kida

Thank you all for these kind words. It‘s the least I could do, I don‘t want people to get the feeling of breaking something and then charging to get something back to a working state.

That said, as you might have noticed Locative is not my main source of income but it‘s something I‘m very passionate about and the In-App Purchases help me justify to invest time into it.

If you‘re missing features, or experiencing bugs feel free to hit me up.

Thank you all for being kind and showing this very solution-oriented attitude, unfortunately that‘s definitely not always the case online.

Marcus I am in NO WAY a developer or even try to play one on TV. I am totally lost trying to get Locative and HE working together. If you built a little step by step primer on how to get things working with the Maker API, I would signup for a subscription in a heartbeats. Right now I just spent 45 minutes reading through over 3 years of posts and I am no closer to getting this configured than when I started. LOL. Cheers!

[ogiewon]

I still use Locative using the instructions I posted a while back. I agree that the instructions could use a refresher, but the only thing that has changed a little is the user interface in the Locative App on your phone.

Use Locative for Presence

In the Locative App, under SETTINGS, make sure you have Global Http Settings configured for "GET", not "POST" You can easily test by pasting in the following two URL's on that same page and clicking "Send Test-Request" Your URL format posted above is a little bit off... Go back to your MAKER API App on your hub, and scroll to the bottom where you should find the following section: Send Device Command (replace [Device ID] with actual subscribed device id and [Command] with a supported comman…

[kerrylebel]

@ogiewon

I still use Locative using the instructions I posted a while back. I agree that the instructions could use a refresher, but the only thing that has changed a little is the user interface in the Locative App on your phone.

In the Locative App, under SETTINGS, make sure you have Global Http Settings configured for "GET", not "POST" You can easily test by pasting in the following two URL's on that same page and clicking "Send Test-Request" Your URL format posted above is a little bit off... Go back to your MAKER API App on your hub, and scroll to the bottom where you should find the following section: Send Device Command (replace [Device ID] with actual subscribed device id and [Command] with a supported comman…

Yup I get it and appreciate what you did so far. Here is where I get lost. I don't know where to get or how to build the two URLs that need to be added to Locative. I am obviously doing this cloud based, so do I need to add login credentials? Is the deviceID I need the really long ID I see in the device details? Where do I find it? All other fields and settings stay default in both the Locative and in the Maker API app? There is lots more in both that no-one is talking about.

[ogiewon]

@kerrylebel

I don't know where to get or how to build the two URLs that need to be added to Locative.

This is where learning about how the Maker API app works will come in very handy. First, you'll need to manually create a Virtual Presence Device. Then, expose that device to Maker API, which needs to have CLOUD access enabled. If you then go into the Maker API app, you'll see the basics of the cloud URLs, including the hubID and accessToken. I described exactly how to get the Device ID in my post that I linked above.

You can even simply use a web browser to try each of the two URLs. One to set the virtual presence sensor to "present", and the other to set it to "not present". If you've got everything correct, you'll see the virtual presence sensor's device page update its attribute accordingly.

Once the CLOUD URLs are known to be working, you can then add them to the Locative App on your phone.

@kerrylebel

so do I need to add login credentials?

No

@kerrylebel

Is the deviceID I need the really long ID I see in the device details?

No

@kerrylebel

Where do I find it?

It'll be in your browser's address URL when you are viewing the Virtual Presence Device.

or you can get as I mentioned in my post that I linked above.

@ogiewon

The easiest way to figure out that numeric ID is to simply click the "Get All Devices" link on the Maker API App page. This will return the list of devices that you have exposed via the Maker API and will show you their 3 digit numeric device IDs.