Geofencing not working

Other Devices & Integrations Door Locks & Sensors
1

Hi!

I got a Danalock v.2 and a Vera Edge, ver 1.7.1625. I have the android app, and used it to set a geofence around my house. Then I have a scene that’s suppost to unlock my door when I enter the geofence zone. I always get a message when I’m exiting home: “Enter - Command can’t be sent to our servers”. When I had a small fence, it worked as long as I was connected to my wifi (when I was still home and the phones GPS “jumped around”), but when I really need the fence to work - it doesn’t. It has never worked! Is this a known issue? How do I get it to work?
Best regards,
Fanan

2

Welcome to the club. There are a few of us who have complained about this issue. The last app update for Android was supposed to improve the Geo Fence performance but so far it doesn’t look promising. It’s amazing to me that Vera can’t get this right when so many other apps/platforms that I use work 100% with Geo Fencing. it’s quite annoying as the lack of a working Geo Fence is limiting the capabilities of my smart home. I’m tempted to change platforms however I’m stuck with some Insteon and X10 devices that I have integrated with my system. At some point, if this doesn’t get fixed, I’ll cut my losses and move to another platform like SmartThings where I know that GeoFencing works much better than Vera’s attempt at the same.

3

No one has said which app they are using but I’m assuming your talking about vera’s stock app right?
Why are you limiting yourself to only one geofence option?

For both Andriod and ios there are better geofence apps that support more then one user.

Andriod was mentioned and “VERA PROXIMITY” has by far way more options and controls for geofence. It can use motion sensors in your phone to eliminate false alerts if you phone is sitting still. It has rapid update feature to start updating your phones location for a time of your choice a mile or what ever you set right outside the main fence. You can set as many fences as you want around your house or multiple locations. Work, home or what ever. It can switch house modes, scenes, a virtual switch or any options you choose.

Also Geofence is good but geofence is limited to cell coverage, if your one the phone (no data while your talking) and other options. You also have ping sensors and other wifi connected options to determine if your home or not.

When your home and away gets to be mission sensitive like mine is, I need/want it to be precise. One method alone is not good enough when I’m auto opening doors and stopping motion sensors in the driveway. I don’t want motion sensors sending me alerts when I get home (drive up driveway) and I don’t want my doors auto opening and closing when I’m a few blocks away and can’t see the house. I use 2 geofences (different ranges) and a ping sensor in total. I use the logic that when 2 of the 3 change to change the master.

The result is says I’m home and away without fail and with a close ring around my house but without false alerts from bouncing geofence or wifi being down or phone off. best of both worlds.

Your system doesn’t have to be as complex as mine, but limiting your self to only the stock app and complaining about it when there is many options doesn’t seem right.

4

This is pretty bold statement for just a geofence app problem, when like I said you have so many options and that is one of the advantages of VERA. Many apps, plugins and such that give you flexibility to customize or find what works best for you. I personally don’t like their stock app at all with it’s list of devices and lack of visual customization and icons.

Imperihome for andriod
Homewave for ios

Are both on the top of my list vs. a stock app.

5

Same problem here Fanan, except not only does the Vera App geofence not work, I also can’t use the 3rd party apps such as Imperihome and Vera Proximity when outside the LAN, as no app I’ve tried will connect since moving to UI7. I’d be interested to hear if you also cannot connect to other apps.

Support said they can’t see any problem with the user accounts and the Vera app won’t register the phone moving in/out of the geofence, let alone change the Away/Home modes. The phone app does occasionally come up with an enter/exit alert but never sets the mode (both boxes at bottom ticked and only one user that ever registers “at home”). Most of the time it was saying “cannot send command to our servers” when an enter/exit movement was detected, now it just does nothing.

6

Autom8, I have the exakt same experience! I’ve tried the same third party android apps with the same result as you. I also wrote to Danalock, as their app is supposed to support geofencing as well. They told me that another update in januari will solve this issue. I really hope it does. I really like the Imperihome app, but it lacks in these cases. I’ll keep you posted!

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7

From what I can tell the problems with Vera’s geofence app and third party apps not connecting remotely, isn’t universally experienced by all users. I’ve been trying to see what common factors there were with those that were experiencing these issues. I should imagine these problems would need to be solved before Danalock will integrate with Vera (but I’m no expert).

8

[quote=“Fanan, post:6, topic:190323”]Autom8, I have the exakt same experience! I’ve tried the same third party android apps with the same result as you. I also wrote to Danalock, as their app is supposed to support geofencing as well. They told me that another update in januari will solve this issue. I really hope it does. I really like the Imperihome app, but it lacks in these cases. I’ll keep you posted!

Skickat fr?n min SM-G900F via Tapatalk[/quote]

As Autom8 has asked, can you be more clear on if NO apps work at all remotely? Autom8 has login issues and can not turn on lights or anything from away from his home. From my prospective this is a VERA server side error. Are you saying you have this same problem of not being able to use any app unless your on you own wifi at home?

Autom8, have you tried logging in via a web browser on your same phone that don’t work with the app? And if that doesn’t work have you tried a web browser from a computer away from your home just to test remote logins on different networks without apps?

9

My mistake. I can use all apps to control my Vera outside my WiFi range. It’s only the geofencing that’s not working. Sorry for the unclear answer earlier.

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10

[quote=“Fanan, post:9, topic:190323”]My mistake. I can use all apps to control my Vera outside my WiFi range. It’s only the geofencing that’s not working. Sorry for the unclear answer earlier.

Skickat fr?n min SM-G900F via Tapatalk[/quote]

Thanks for the clarification.

You have not said if your on iphone or Andriod which would make a big difference on which direction I would recommend. But I still need to make clear GEO-FENCE is not a end all solution and it is largely based on your device (phone) and cell coverage. Your phone bases your location on GPS, WIFI, and cell tower Triangulation (if you even have it setup for high accuracy, if not it might only base it on one which is even less accurate. Battery consumption is higher when all methods are used and by default high accuracy is not enabled on an andriod). Sitting at home in one spot it is normal to see your location bounce all around and even outside of the circle you have made. You also have problems when the circle is the same size or close to the wifi coverage. Your phone looses internet when getting home and leaving due to the wifi dropping and picking up cell service and vis versa. There is up to a min delay during this time and depending on how the app is setup your commands trying to be sent to vera can fail if you have no internet.

If cell towers are farther away from your home then triangulation is difficult and less accurate, which is where geofence might be great at one persons house but somewhere else you bounce all over as your not connected to multiple towers or have a good signal.

Now talking about apps. Some can and do work better then others by adding in more variables to help stop false alerts. You can use internal sensors on the phone to take into consideration if the phone feels movement or changing directions. If it doesn’t it can ignore a fence crossing and stop you from falsely bouncing out when the phone is sitting on a table still in the middle of the night. Andriod phones have more options as the app builders are allowed deeper into the phone and use of sensors that APPLE will not allow. Apps also have the option to determine if the user is on the phone during the fence crossing and if there is no internet to wait for so long after and retry the request. These things all go into how far the app builder was allowed or decided to go and make corrections to help make it more accurate.

Using VERA’s built in geofence is very limited not only on how accurate it is but what it controls (one switch). If your using aftermarket app on your phone (vera proximity) you can have it run scenes, trigger devices directly or switch multi-switches. And you have an app that is good at one thing not simi good at a few (the rest of the app is less then ideal also and many use Homewave or Imperihome over it).

Even after you get all done with playing with a single geofence app I still found I needed redundancy to make sure it was never missed. I also use a PING or wifi based sensor to also check that my phone is home. This will allow you to use a small geofence around your house but without bouncing out accidentally.

11

Thanks for the information. I’m a real newbie to this and are having a hard time trying to understand all of it. I have a Samsung Galaxy S5, so it’s a android. It’s there any guides available for us newbies? Especially when it comes to using vera proximity. I looked at their website, but couldn’t find any useful information. Thanks once again for your help!

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12

[quote=“Fanan, post:11, topic:190323”]Thanks for the information. I’m a real newbie to this and are having a hard time trying to understand all of it. I have a Samsung Galaxy S5, so it’s a android. It’s there any guides available for us newbies? Especially when it comes to using vera proximity. I looked at their website, but couldn’t find any useful information. Thanks once again for your help!

Skickat fr?n min SM-G900F via Tapatalk[/quote]

Unfortunately I don’t know of any guides for the VERA proximity App.

This app and a few other plugins and apps were all developed by a very active user here on the Forums. Richard has his own website which has limited information on it and there there is the specific spots ( or not so specific in the General box) on the forum to discus the apps/plugins. But those many help with answering direct questions not A-Z installation.

http://rts-services.com/Android/VeraProximity/ (looks like it’s no longer up)

I would say that even for a newbie the steps are not totally difficult and many people will offer assistance if asked.

You need to install the app, add your vera credentials, go to settings and setup a registration key (cost I think 5.95 per device one time you want to use it on, you can add more later)

Use the circle with a dot to make a new location (home should be your first one, but I also have more including work) and after the location is set then you can add a fence. Fence size can be adjust and you can use multiple fences around you house. Don’t want to over complicate it for you starting off but you can have a small fence and a larger fence for backup. You can also have the larger fence put your phone in rapid update when getting home so your smaller fence will trip faster. Don’t get worked up into those things until you get the basics down.

When you click on fence settings you can choose what happens when you enter or exit a fence.
Local alerts = means beep or vibrate your phone.
SMS = text u
Vera Action = the main one you should check and use which would be have vera do something!
Mobile Device Unlock Required = If your device is locked and needs to be unlocked (I don’t use this)

with VERA Action checked you need to select your vera serial below (mush have your vera credentials already setup)

Choose which action (run a scene, flip a virtual switch or what ever) I use virtual switches myself but that’s another lesson.

Rapid update on the bottom is used to put your phone in rapid GPS checking mode and have it check your position over and over again fast to watch for a fence crossing coming up. This drains battery, so location updates (by phone default) are generally every few min to keep from draining your battery. If you set a large fence around your house say .5 to 1 mile with like 3 to 5min. and set rapid update when entering that large fence (no vera action yet) then set a small fence around your house the small fence will trip fast (run a vera action, to say your home) since your phone was put into rapid update mode before hand.

13

I’m having issues too with the Geofencing and I thought it was my devices. I am a Windows Phone home, not Android or iOS, so I didn’t know if it was Pre-Release Win 10 Mobile or Windows Phone 8 (my wife).

Every time we enter our leave our fenced area, we successfully get notifications, but it NEVER sets the home to “AWAY” mode when both of us leave the fence.

Is there a way to check in the Vera interface (web url) of which devices it’s tracking and/or location of them?

Thanks!
Stephen