Will there ever be a solid presence option?

Exactly what I was just writing too. Life 360 Geofence can be set to as little as 250 ft, works great for us.

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Where do you see size? I just counted houses and mine covers 6 houses on either side of me. I was able to shrink it enough that we don't trigger it when passing by on the nearest main road anymore, and it still works well. Typically triggers just before pulling into the driveway.

On the map, click any 'marker', then click on the 'pencil'. You should now be on the 'Edit Place' screen. From here you can set the zone size and edit the Place details (name, address)

I am using the paid version (android) so don't know if it's available in the free version. :grin:

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Ah got it, thanks :slight_smile: I'm at 415 ft.

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I beg to differ there... Maybe not useful for how YOU use presence, but the geofencing is perfectly fine for me... In fact I INCREASE the size of the circle from the default.

I'm fine with being considered home if I'm anywhere in my neighborhood (2000ft circle). You may feel differently.

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250ft is HUGE for a geofence ESPECIALLY if you live near a major road such as myself where your kids drive through to get to friends houses. So with 250ft they are always arriving/leaving home and Life360 doesn't account for that or the speed at which they are traveling. Also would you really want your home opening a garage or unlocking doors when you are not able to visibly see that automation occur?

Hence Life360 GeoFence is HUGE compared to the other solutions I pointed out. Locative is 50ft, Homekit is 100ft and WiFi Presence is 25ft. So again Life360's smallest Geofence is HUGE.

Yes, I am absolutely OK with my doors unlocking when I can't see them - it isn't like they are flying open...

I would never trust a system to OPEN a door - if it malfunctioned, for any reason, that would be a big security problem to me.

A wide open door (garage, et al) is a much more serious issue than a door just being unlocked. If a door is inadvertently unlocked, someone still has to try it and then decide to come it. If a door is wide open, that proactively invites people in.

HUGE difference.

But regardless. You are correct - if you need <250ft presence detection, Life360 is not for you.

Just to clarify "real automations" - anything that does something more than just turn on a light. :slight_smile:

The family really likes the idea of doors unlocking and garage doors opening. Hence why you need to rely on something significantly more than just (1) presence solution. Having lights go on and a door unlock without the person being near (<75 ft) creates a security issue. Automation sequences are not random and if someone watched your home could easily figure out what is happening and have plenty of time to get into your home without you knowing about it.

Example with your 2000 ft radius in my neighborhood:

  1. You enter the radius and now presence is active
  2. Front exterior lights go on
  3. After a delay of 30 seconds (to account for Life360 inaccuracy of Presence such as a driveby) front door unlocks
  4. HSM is disarmed
  5. You arrive home
  6. You just walk through your front door without any noticeable action such as unlocking the physical door OR using a mobile device. Aka you just walk in.
  7. Home announces a welcome home message once the door opens

Basically someone could watch your home a few times no matter who was the person coming/going and determine your home automation sequence. AND they could test their theory without notice because you are at least 1500ft away from your home.

Not sure how else you would leverage Life360 outside of this scenario for automation tasks besides light automation inside.

Also keep in mind I use Life360 as part of my "keep an eye on my teenagers" and invest in the annual subscription so I can have multiple locations such as their friends houses, the multiple school buildings they visit, and other known hangouts. I do some minor automation announcements using IFTTT to pushover but really nothing to HE itself for presence.

Lights going on and doors unlocking creates a potential security issue. Unless someone is actively trying your doors, there is no actual security issue. Can augment with cameras and motion detection to know if someone is at a door.

Garage door opening when no one is home creates a real security issue/perimeter break. If you are so security minded I can't believe you would let your garage door open automatically, under ANY circumstances. One hub malfunction and your perimeter is breached, not potentially, but actually.

But security, like automation, is very personal and there is no 1 right answer for everyone. :smile: I'm not saying you are right/wrong, just posing a counter data point.

And your use case and counter points are duly noted too - and make sense for how you are using the system.

It's what works for you that counts but...

All my "REAL Automations" happen just fine with a 250 ft. Geofence. I too live on a main road, 35 mph zone but most people are going over 40 mph. We are typically in the driveway within 10 seconds of being 'sensed' by the system. Also, in our area, almost no one uses the front door. We don't have an automated lock on the front door and we don't even carry a key to it! I do have an automated lock on both my back door and on my bulkhead door. So the back of our house is where all the 'magic' happens when we come home.

Also, with our Nest doorbell, even if the house unlocks when we drive by (would relock in about 45 seconds because we 'left' again), the Nest would let me know that someone was at the door. It would even tell me WHO is at the door if it is someone who comes over every now and then.

Realistically, comparing a 250 ft geofence to a 75 ft geofence is basically about 2 second difference in detection. Not going to lose any sleep over that. :wink:

That’s why I don’t connect ANY external access to Hubitat (or any other system) and never will.
It doesn’t hurt me to enter a code to unlock a door or press a button on a remote to open my garage.

Even if 100% presence accuracy could be achieved I still wouldn’t use it to secure my home.

Andy

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I agree having a large door open without anyone there to witness it is a HUGE perimeter problem. But also the loud unlocking of a door is just as big a problem just not as visible.

I don't allow the garage door to open unless multiple things occur and are true. Including a presence sensor in a vehicle for this automation. A hub malfunction cannot open doors/locks. Power outage doors/locks do not automate. Update issues do not open doors/locks automatically. Secured ZWAVE removes the ability to remotely hack the channel and communications. So in essence automation is very possible but as you said needs to be thoughtfully considered and planned.

Again you can't just have a single presence solution to automate any of these advanced automations. You HAVE to use multiple presence solutions AND rules to take into account logic you didn't think of that could leave you vunerable.

So for my garage door to open the following MUST be true to have RM do anything:

  1. Vehicle presence is detected (ST Zwave Presence Sensor)
  2. Drivers (wife or myself) arrives through Locative (100ft and home visible to driver)
  3. Drivers (wife or myself) arrives through WiFi Presence (25ft and home visible to driver)
  4. Ring Door Bell Motion notification through IFTTT activating a momentary button/switch
  5. Pushover/Homekit notifications about activities occurring

Notice arrives...not present, multiple devices and not all presence sensors and the use of rules with multiple truths that need to occur in order for anything to work. This has had zero issues and no phantom executions.

Overall though you are right. Security is something that you cannot mess with and need to truly think about prior to exposing any automation to those barriers.

In the end, though, if the automation system is driving the output that opens the door - a hub issue/clicking the wrong button can open the door.

I'm not arguing that your AS INTENDED behavior isn't reliable - in fact it sounds pretty cool.

I'm saying if there is a hub malfunction, and the hub is the one that triggers the garage door opening, then it can happen. And in that scenario all of your protections and logic don't mean anything - by definition.

Do I think that likely? No, I don't. But the impact if it did happen, to me, is about 1000x worse than my door unlocking.

But this could happen without presence based on your comment above? If a HUB malfunction triggers a wrong button then it doesn't matter what is placed into rules for automation. Your infrastructure is compromised and that is all on the HUB and manufacturer.

There has to be a degree of trust that the HUB won't do something like that with locks/doors. Else why would we be automating those entry points? :wink:

No argument there!! And everyone's risk tolerance on malfunctions is different. And that's OK.

when you do this do how would you account for a situation like this:
-locative on phone (Both on wife and my mine)
-st presence sensor in both of our cars

I'm just trying to trigger "someone is home" or "nobody is home"

if we drive together in a single car both of our locative would be away but only one of the sensors in our car. so then how would we trigger it? that's the main issue I'm having.

Set up one device for you and your car then another for your wife and hers. Then if you want you can then combine them new two into one.
Then only one of the car or the location needs to trigger for that person's sensor to flip

I would use a trigger for both vehicles to initiate a rule trigger:

Trigger:
Presence Car #1 leaves
Presence Car #2 leaves

Condition:
Wifey Presence and Hubby Presence

Then:
HSM Arm and lock up home

When combining multiple presence sensors (either to get more reliability, or if I want something triggered based on the actions of multiple people), I don't like to put the logic into Rule Machine. Too hard to get right, and it has to be duplicated in each rule. So I made an app that can do the combinations and set the output on a Virtual Presence sensor. Then Rule Machine can just trigger based off of those output sensors. I've uploaded it now: https://community.hubitat.com/t/release-combined-presence/9186?u=jwetzel1492

An iPhone? :smiley:

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