Hi,
I understand how to setup geofence so that it triggers “home” or “away” mode, but it seems that it leaves out some other options.
I have different thermostat throughout the house for various zones. Let’s say there are 3 people A,B and C.
I would like to set it up that if only A is home Thermostat 1+2 are set to a certain temperature. If B is here as well, then thermostat 3 is set to a certain value. If C is here, then it overrides A and set Thermostat 1+2 to a certain value. In other words I need to be able to establish who is home in order to establish which thermostat needs to be set to what.
I have tried to use the virtual switch, but can it be assigned to a specific person ? How ?
I have read about iPhone locator, but concerned about draining the phones batteries.
Ping sensor could be an alternative, but what if people forget to turn on their wifi when home ?
I have used iPhone Locator for a couple of years and noticed little battery drain. I had my iPhone 6 on battery the last 4 hours, have heard email come in, checked email once or twice, looked at VeraMate a couple of times to see weather conditions and forecasts, and I am at 99%. When I am on cellular for 4 or 5 hours at work, I may drop to like 80%. We did get new batteries a couple of weeks ago since our almost 3 year old batteries were not able to function for more than 30 minutes without plugging in.
You can use virtual switches and combination switches to do what you want. I have one for me, and 1 for my wife, called simply Person_Name Home. I have it appear in VeraMate only when on so right now it shows we are both home. When one or both leave, the switch is off and does not display in VeraMate.
I also have a switch called No One Home, which is a combination switch when both of the Home switches are off.
But I have found PLEG the easiest way to program what you want. Similar to virtual switches, you can set device properties. If one person is home, you can set up actions, when 2 are home other actions, and all 3 another action. You can even sent alerts so you know what is happening.
In my case, I use VeraAlerts to send custom messages to VeraMate when one of us leave, come home, No One Home is set, house mode changes from Home to Away and vice versa, when cameras are armed/disarmed, when the thermostat switches from heating to cooling or vice versa, when the fan is running and when it is idle, when exterior lights are turned on/off, etc.
Unfortunately, getting your home to know the exact person who is in the house can be extremely tricky. I wanted to do the same, but I’ve compromised and got my home to turn things on/off simply based off of occupancy/weather/etc. The issues are so numerous: geofencing isn’t 100% reliable, motion sensing isn’t specific enough, ping sensing isn’t specific enough (not to mention you’re tied to software changes in Android/Apple), phones can be left at home and not everyone has one, etc.
The best compromise I found involved using motion (every room) + ping + geofence to get somewhat close to accurate. It required a lot of custom code and a lot of time to troubleshoot.
I’ve been toying with the idea with pattern matching/learning within the house, but I know that would require a ton more work for marginally better results. Ideally I’m hoping that someone comes up with a type of badge or beacon system, or even Google Home’s voice recognition, so that it’s much more accurate.
Good luck. I hope to hear if anyone else has any better ideas.
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