Fast questions

Plugins & Plugin Development IPhone Locator
#1

I am trying to figure out how exacting this is, or if there is some level of error built in to location. It does not seem to be numerically absolute from what I see here.

My setting is .15 miles as a fence around home. When the iPhone location reports just outside of the fence (end of my driveway) it does not trigger. In the pictures you can see the setting for the fence and the location of the phone itself. The phone is .17 and I know the location is being read right because the poll time is switches to 10s based on the pattern I have that is set (0:3600,0.15:10,5:120,10:300 and so on). I have a sensor that opens the gates to access the main entrance driveway when leaving and that triggers a force refresh. That puts me at about .17 miles from the home location. Further down the driveway there is a MURS sensor that triggers a refresh again at about .28 miles and that always seems to trigger. The locator seems very repeatable, but does not trigger away unless it’s more like >.20 away after really messing with it. It’s not a huge deal and I might be asking more from it than it could do but ideally I would like it to know if I am inside or outside the gates but not off the property.

Love the plugin, and thank you for all of your hard work.
Mike

#2

It is only going to be as accurate as your GPS on the phone will be through iCloud. Generally speaking it is pretty good but iCloud doesn’t poll your phone constantly and has some margin of error which increases as you move between polling.
iCloud polls your phone. The app polls iCloud. There can be gaps caused by the intervals. You can go look at your iCloud account and see how accurate it is.

#3

Yeah I get that, but the app as reported said it was .17 away. So iCloud reported the distance at .17, but the fence in the app was set to .15. So for sure I know the app was aware of the distance because it used the .17 to select the proper poll time, but did not activate away. The poll interval and the fence both have the same numeric value of .15.

Like I said, I was something I noticed because I was trying to see how granular I could get. Still a super addition to anyones Vera system that has an iPhone.

#4

[quote=“rafale77, post:2, topic:195850”]It is only going to be as accurate as your GPS on the phone will be through iCloud. Generally speaking it is pretty good but iCloud doesn’t poll your phone constantly and has some margin of error which increases as you move between polling.
iCloud polls your phone. The app polls iCloud. There can be gaps caused by the intervals. You can go look at your iCloud account and see how accurate it is.[/quote]

This is incorrect.

GPS location, as a consumer service, is regulated by the Federal Government to only be accurate to within about 10’. Phone manufacturers have increased the accuracy to narrower distances, partly by adding WiFi signaling to assist with triangulation and such.

iCloud has NOTHING to do with calculation of the phone’s location, and is ONLY used to store location data that the phone sends to iCloud for the Find My iPhone service on the device itself. iCloud can be completely disabled on the device and it will function correctly.

Geofencing triggers events based on transitions, not based on mere presence. At .17 miles distance from the center of a .15 mile fence, is a little over a 100’ difference in distance. That’s PLENTY of difference to cause the geofence to trigger a change. Do you have Location Services allowed for the Vera app?

I have everything set up correctly on my phone and have found that I need to go a few hundred feet beyond the border of my fence to get my scene to fire that handles “Leaving area” conditions while entering the area seems to only require coming over the line by 50’ or so. I haven’t really narrowed this down because A) the transitions always happen while I’m driving and not moving at a slow pace like walking and B) cell coverage near my house is very weak and may play a part in the delays.

#5

[quote=“ember1205, post:4, topic:195850”][quote=“rafale77, post:2, topic:195850”]It is only going to be as accurate as your GPS on the phone will be through iCloud. Generally speaking it is pretty good but iCloud doesn’t poll your phone constantly and has some margin of error which increases as you move between polling.
iCloud polls your phone. The app polls iCloud. There can be gaps caused by the intervals. You can go look at your iCloud account and see how accurate it is.[/quote]

This is incorrect.

GPS location, as a consumer service, is regulated by the Federal Government to only be accurate to within about 10’. Phone manufacturers have increased the accuracy to narrower distances, partly by adding WiFi signaling to assist with triangulation and such.

iCloud has NOTHING to do with calculation of the phone’s location, and is ONLY used to store location data that the phone sends to iCloud for the Find My iPhone service on the device itself. iCloud can be completely disabled on the device and it will function correctly.

Geofencing triggers events based on transitions, not based on mere presence. At .17 miles distance from the center of a .15 mile fence, is a little over a 100’ difference in distance. That’s PLENTY of difference to cause the geofence to trigger a change. Do you have Location Services allowed for the Vera app?

I have everything set up correctly on my phone and have found that I need to go a few hundred feet beyond the border of my fence to get my scene to fire that handles “Leaving area” conditions while entering the area seems to only require coming over the line by 50’ or so. I haven’t really narrowed this down because A) the transitions always happen while I’m driving and not moving at a slow pace like walking and B) cell coverage near my house is very weak and may play a part in the delays.[/quote]

You do realize that this section and question is not about vera geofencing but the iphone locator plugin right?
The iphone locator app polls icloud for the device location. The data is sent by icloud as a json to the vera unit with coordinates which the plugin sends to google map to calculate distance to your home location… To answer your question, no I do not use the vera geofence for the very reason you are bringing up. I am finding it very unreliable. The vera geofence does not rely on iCloud at all indeed but this isn’t the question here.
The iphone locator plugin has been very accurate for me as long as the location of the phone is correct on iCloud. I found iCloud reports having variations of up to 20meters. If one uses the “driving” metering distance on google map, it can throw the location off from one street to the other. I was sitting at one of my neighbors house and kept on tripping my house mode on and off without moving because his house was right at my distance limit so depending on where icloud located the device, google thought I was either on the front street or the back street which then changes the driving distance by 100meters.

Anywho. @mtruppi, you would not happen to have a delay setup to change your mode to away do you? Not sure if amg0 built in some tolerance to avoid tripping the fence when one is right at the limit. I have not observed it. All my variations seem to always be due to the accuracy of the location which I can verify on icloud.

#6

[quote=“rafale77, post:5, topic:195850”]You do realize that this section and question is not about vera geofencing but the iphone locator plugin right?
The iphone locator app polls icloud for the device location. The data is sent by icloud as a json to the vera unit with coordinates which the plugin uses sends to google map to calculate distance to your home location… To answer your question, no I do not use the vera geofence for the very reason you are bringing up. I am finding it very unreliable. The vera geofence does not rely on iCloud at all indeed but this isn’t the question here.[/quote]

Apologies. This forum is one of the “clunkiest” in terms of how you’re able to navigate and understand what you’re reading. So, no, I didn’t realize that this was related specifically to the iPhone Locator plugin.

#7

[quote=“rafale77, post:5, topic:195850”][quote=“ember1205, post:4, topic:195850”][quote=“rafale77, post:2, topic:195850”]It is only going to be as accurate as your GPS on the phone will be through iCloud. Generally speaking it is pretty good but iCloud doesn’t poll your phone constantly and has some margin of error which increases as you move between polling.
iCloud polls your phone. The app polls iCloud. There can be gaps caused by the intervals. You can go look at your iCloud account and see how accurate it is.[/quote]

This is incorrect.

GPS location, as a consumer service, is regulated by the Federal Government to only be accurate to within about 10’. Phone manufacturers have increased the accuracy to narrower distances, partly by adding WiFi signaling to assist with triangulation and such.

iCloud has NOTHING to do with calculation of the phone’s location, and is ONLY used to store location data that the phone sends to iCloud for the Find My iPhone service on the device itself. iCloud can be completely disabled on the device and it will function correctly.

Geofencing triggers events based on transitions, not based on mere presence. At .17 miles distance from the center of a .15 mile fence, is a little over a 100’ difference in distance. That’s PLENTY of difference to cause the geofence to trigger a change. Do you have Location Services allowed for the Vera app?

I have everything set up correctly on my phone and have found that I need to go a few hundred feet beyond the border of my fence to get my scene to fire that handles “Leaving area” conditions while entering the area seems to only require coming over the line by 50’ or so. I haven’t really narrowed this down because A) the transitions always happen while I’m driving and not moving at a slow pace like walking and B) cell coverage near my house is very weak and may play a part in the delays.[/quote]

You do realize that this section and question is not about vera geofencing but the iphone locator plugin right?
The iphone locator app polls icloud for the device location. The data is sent by icloud as a json to the vera unit with coordinates which the plugin sends to google map to calculate distance to your home location… To answer your question, no I do not use the vera geofence for the very reason you are bringing up. I am finding it very unreliable. The vera geofence does not rely on iCloud at all indeed but this isn’t the question here.
The iphone locator plugin has been very accurate for me as long as the location of the phone is correct on iCloud. I found iCloud reports having variations of up to 20meters. If one uses the “driving” metering distance on google map, it can throw the location off from one street to the other. I was sitting at one of my neighbors house and kept on tripping my house mode on and off without moving because his house was right at my distance limit so depending on where icloud located the device, google thought I was either on the front street or the back street which then changes the driving distance by 100meters.

Anywho. @mtruppi, you would not happen to have a delay setup to change your mode to away do you? Not sure if amg0 built in some tolerance to avoid tripping the fence when one is right at the limit. I have not observed it. All my variations seem to always be due to the accuracy of the location which I can verify on icloud.[/quote]

Well, when I was referencing present/away it was just in the device control. There is no delay in anything I am just observing the device.

All I was saying is the following.
Geofence is set at .15m and polling decreases from 3600s to 10s at the same .15m
When the device is .17 away the app is aware of the change because it changes to 10s polling but the device does not change it’s state (not house mode away) to away. All I was asking why the present/away side would not flip at .17 but the polling side would. Again, not a big deal just something I saw.