Using away mode when there's no cell service

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1

I want to try experimenting with away mode. But we live in a very rural area, and there isn't a reliable cell connection until we are 5 miles away from the house, conversely we also loose cell service when we get within 5 miles of the house.

So how is it possible to use away mode? Going wouldn't be a problem, away mode just wouldn't be set until we were 5 miles away from the house.

But how would coming home work? Even though I have a WiFi AP at the end of the driveway, the phones don't do a good job of immediately re-connecting to wifi when we get home, it takes 2-4 minutes for it to pick up the WiFi signal and reconnect.

2

A presence sensor in your car (that doesn’t rely on WiFi) could do it.

SmartThings used to make a zigbee device for this need but I don’t think it’s still manufactured.

There may also be a couple z-wave devices marketed as key fobs that would work too.

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3

I was thinking something Zwave LR as well, I was just going to post some Zwave questions, namely if I have a battery Zwave LR device, since these devices don't keep a constant contact with the HUB like, is there any sort of reconnect procedure/process when the device goes in and out of range of the hub?