ajd123 Posted May 11, 2023 Share Posted May 11, 2023 What are some ways you use Geofencing for automation? In your experience what are the pros and cons of geofencing. Thinking about setting this up, but want to get peoples opinions first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew luecke Posted May 11, 2023 Share Posted May 11, 2023 What do you want to accomplish? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samrwalker Posted May 11, 2023 Share Posted May 11, 2023 I love my geofencing setup. I keep track of my phone and my wife's phone. Last one out of the house, everything shuts off, all the lights go out. Enables push notifications from cameras while we're gone. When we arrive at home, when you open the front door the lights come on different levels depending on the time of day. I love it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted May 11, 2023 Share Posted May 11, 2023 The challenge w geo fencing IMHO are kids, dog walkers service people... Everyone you can't track... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samrwalker Posted May 11, 2023 Share Posted May 11, 2023 2 minutes ago, msgreenf said: The challenge w geo fencing IMHO are kids, dog walkers service people... Everyone you can't track... in our two person household it’s certainly easier. I keep track of people entering the house when we’re not there by enabling “home” mode when the front door opens and neither of our phones are there. It then keeps track of all motion in the house and after a set amount of time will set the house back to “away.” I also have a guest mode that ignores the geofencing, and adjusts motion rules in our guest spaces as to not disturb people too much with short timers in rooms turning lights off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elvis Posted May 11, 2023 Share Posted May 11, 2023 Absolutely love it in HomeKit. We approach the neighborhood, the garage door comes up on CarPlay. Last one out, first one home, when I leave, when my wife leaves... events all work like a champ and (knocking on wood) very reliable. It doesn't have "at night" or "after sunset," etc. so I previously kludged it by going HomeKit > Lutron > C4 and programming it in composer. Now I just don't worry about the time of day for geo fenced events. Still use the C4 coding to handle scheduling/time of day related programming. Apple (and Google) building it into our phones gives them an edge third parties like C4 don't have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dueport Posted May 11, 2023 Share Posted May 11, 2023 I’ve tried doing this in various ways but for whatever reason it was always unreliable and created frustrations for everyone. I would love to see it reliably added natively to the app. However, our work around for this is something that took a long time to land on but has worked perfectly and no more frustrations. Our car garage door openers are paired with a Liftmaster 850LM wired to C4 to detect and C4 is wired to relays that open the doors. In this way C4 knows when we arrive home so it then opens the correct door and runs welcome home routine. For arrival we have a button on the keypad to hit before you’re leaving the house empty and that runs the away routine. There’s also an experience button in the app that does the same thing you can use if you forgot to hit the button. Remembering that is the only small annoyance but otherwise this approach has provided us with most of the benefits of geotracking (automatic presence detection) and non of the reliability issues we had earlier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South Africa C4 user Posted May 11, 2023 Share Posted May 11, 2023 50 minutes ago, Dueport said: I’ve tried doing this in various ways but for whatever reason it was always unreliable and created frustrations for everyone. I would love to see it reliably added natively to the app. However, our work around for this is something that took a long time to land on but has worked perfectly and no more frustrations. Our car garage door openers are paired with a Liftmaster 850LM wired to C4 to detect and C4 is wired to relays that open the doors. In this way C4 knows when we arrive home so it then opens the correct door and runs welcome home routine. For arrival we have a button on the keypad to hit before you’re leaving the house empty and that runs the away routine. There’s also an experience button in the app that does the same thing you can use if you forgot to hit the button. Remembering that is the only small annoyance but otherwise this approach has provided us with most of the benefits of geotracking (automatic presence detection) and non of the reliability issues we had earlier. I pretty much do the same. An exit button for when the last person leaves and I use IFTTT geofencing for arriving home (over 90% reliable) and garage door sensors as the backup. Dueport 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amr Posted May 11, 2023 Share Posted May 11, 2023 Geofencing works flawlessly with HomeKit, period. Wanted to add some sophisticated occupancy sensors to HA to add extra layer of detection in case WiFi is off but that’s exactly is covered by HomeKit as well so I stick with it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajd123 Posted May 11, 2023 Author Share Posted May 11, 2023 26 minutes ago, Amr said: Geofencing works flawlessly with HomeKit, period. Wanted to add some sophisticated occupancy sensors to HA to add extra layer of detection in case WiFi is off but that’s exactly is covered by HomeKit as well so I stick with it! Wish I could get HomeKit working but every time I try to enable Apple TV control I get this dreaded message “unable to complete Apple TV integration” Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted May 12, 2023 Share Posted May 12, 2023 16 minutes ago, ajd123 said: Wish I could get HomeKit working but every time I try to enable Apple TV control I get this dreaded message “unable to complete Apple TV integration” Your wifi is off in that image. Can't enable it if you are t on wifi. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajd123 Posted May 12, 2023 Author Share Posted May 12, 2023 5 minutes ago, msgreenf said: Your wifi is off in that image. Can't enable it if you are t on wifi. Nice catch, but doesn’t work on wifi in same network either… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amr Posted May 12, 2023 Share Posted May 12, 2023 7 hours ago, ajd123 said: Nice catch, but doesn’t work on wifi in same network either… Works fine with a lot, reset Apple TV, remove everything, re-register controller, Apple devices on latest, Home App works, try again, will work this time, of course am sure u r aware that it need same account as your phone, when to enable C4 app, etc, it has a procedure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted May 12, 2023 Share Posted May 12, 2023 3 hours ago, Amr said: Works fine with a lot, reset Apple TV, remove everything, re-register controller, Apple devices on latest, Home App works, try again, will work this time, of course am sure u r aware that it need same account as your phone, when to enable C4 app, etc, it has a procedure. the only thing we haven't done in that list is re-register controller Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajd123 Posted May 12, 2023 Author Share Posted May 12, 2023 3 hours ago, Amr said: Works fine with a lot, reset Apple TV, remove everything, re-register controller, Apple devices on latest, Home App works, try again, will work this time, of course am sure u r aware that it need same account as your phone, when to enable C4 app, etc, it has a procedure. I even tried signing out of my Apple ID in my phone and back in on my iPhone. This was a nuisance as it deleted all the cards in my wallet. This did not work either. I wonder if reregistering the controller would make it visible in the Home app? Is your Control4 controller visible in Home? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew luecke Posted May 12, 2023 Share Posted May 12, 2023 I wouldn't use Geofencing for anything security related personally iPhones and iPads allegedly don't have proper GPS RAIM or FDE, which is one reason why pilots apparently can't use the GPS on such devices for IFR flights. And if networking gets lost, not sure if that affects things either unfortunately. That being said, probably ok for more basic things like setting thermostats, or setting exterior lights msgreenf 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anks329 Posted May 12, 2023 Share Posted May 12, 2023 16 hours ago, Amr said: Geofencing works flawlessly with HomeKit, period. Wanted to add some sophisticated occupancy sensors to HA to add extra layer of detection in case WiFi is off but that’s exactly is covered by HomeKit as well so I stick with it! Can you explain a little more on your setup with HomeKit and how it connects into Control4? I want to add some basic control over my garage doors based on geofencing and be able to close them if I leave them open by mistake and have them open as I come home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elvis Posted May 12, 2023 Share Posted May 12, 2023 6 hours ago, Andrew luecke said: I wouldn't use Geofencing for anything security related personally iPhones and iPads allegedly don't have proper GPS RAIM or FDE, which is one reason why pilots apparently can't use the GPS on such devices for IFR flights. And if networking gets lost, not sure if that affects things either unfortunately. That being said, probably ok for more basic things like setting thermostats, or setting exterior lights HomeKit will prompt you before opening/closing the garage door automatically or unlocking doors -- which I agree with. But the CarPlay functionality puts things one touch away. Even with prompting, we don't use it to unlock or auto-open the door. Since we often pass through the fence, it would be very annoying and I wouldn't trust myself not to fat finger it. You can't fly IFR without an IFR certified airplane and removable electronics aren't certifiable. But everyone uses the iPad as their electronic flight bag flying IFR approaches. The plane doesn't use it, so that makes it okay with the FAA. If your phone isn't on the cellular network or your home network, geo-fencing is obviously not going to be able to communicate with your HomeKit devices/controller. If you have no cell/network coverage, then you'd need other sensors. We had a driveway sensor at a previous house in the country that triggered the lights. Effectively a geo-fence, so to speak. We haven't come home to a dark house in more than 5 years. I couldn't do without it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elvis Posted May 12, 2023 Share Posted May 12, 2023 9 hours ago, ajd123 said: I even tried signing out of my Apple ID in my phone and back in on my iPhone. This was a nuisance as it deleted all the cards in my wallet. This did not work either. I wonder if reregistering the controller would make it visible in the Home app? Is your Control4 controller visible in Home? You should see your controller in whatever room it's in. If it's not there, you need to re-do the C4 pairing process. Sorry I don't remember the steps so I won't guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimbones Posted May 12, 2023 Share Posted May 12, 2023 The controller shows up in Homekit AFTER you complete the step you're stuck on. So you're not going to see it until you resolve that error. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajd123 Posted May 12, 2023 Author Share Posted May 12, 2023 10 minutes ago, jimbones said: The controller shows up in Homekit AFTER you complete the step you're stuck on. So you're not going to see it until you resolve that error. This was my next question. I would really like to get this resolved. Only thing I have not tried is repairing the controller which I cannot do remotely with my Control4 integrator Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amr Posted May 12, 2023 Share Posted May 12, 2023 1 hour ago, ajd123 said: This was my next question. I would really like to get this resolved. Only thing I have not tried is repairing the controller which I cannot do remotely with my Control4 integrator You don’t need any integrator with this just un-register from customer.control4.com and re-register by entering the 10 digits code from your UI Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amr Posted May 12, 2023 Share Posted May 12, 2023 1 hour ago, ajd123 said: This was my next question. I would really like to get this resolved. Only thing I have not tried is repairing the controller which I cannot do remotely with my Control4 integrator Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted May 12, 2023 Share Posted May 12, 2023 3 minutes ago, Amr said: You don’t need any integrator with this just un-register from customer.control4.com and re-register by entering the 10 digits code from your UI i don't think that is the csae in OS 3 anymore Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jillmark99 Posted May 12, 2023 Share Posted May 12, 2023 On 5/11/2023 at 2:27 PM, Dueport said: I’ve tried doing this in various ways but for whatever reason it was always unreliable and created frustrations for everyone. I would love to see it reliably added natively to the app. I’ve been using Chowmain’s IFTTT driver for geofencing ever since follow me stopped working and I must say it works great. It’s extremely rare it doesn’t work. Everyone in our house is iOS devices. Highly recommend it. I also agree with you it would be nice to have it natively integrated into C4. Dueport 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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