how do you "detect" somone home ?

Community Playground General Discussions
#21

Indeed.

akbooer your Dream Green House link in turn links to a Smart Things solution which is a propriety key fob that you can associate with individuals or objects (like a car). Demo: SmartSense Presence. It looks like a reasonably robust solution. There is user tear down of the fob.

[quote=“RichardTSchaefer, post:2, topic:175326”]There are a lot of strategies for a single occupant. For multiple occupants that come and go at different times I can think of a couple of strategies …
All make some type of assumption to infer presence, or lack thereof …
…

[ul][li]Ping Sensor on everyone’s phone using LAN IP address. Need to handle false hits when Phone is sleeping[/li][/ul]

…[/quote]

There exists the Unlock with Wifi Android App that prevents the lockscreen from activating when you are at home by detecting whether your phone is connected to your Wifi network.

It would seem this logic could be readily adapted for presence detection in general. In Android there is “Settings > Wifi > Advanced > Keep WiFi on during sleep.” to address the phone sleeping issue (I prefer my phone to be able to update various bits of data when sleeping anyway).

An installed Phone App could also identify persons. This could be done by the App can sending a MAC(?) or other address. Relying on dynamically allocated IP addressed wouldn’t work. If all else failed you could require an Phone App User to enter their name manually.

It does seem that there would have to be a pulse (or ping). Whether that ought be pushed from the Phone side or pulled from the Vera side, I don’t know.

Edit: There is another thread, “Wireless Sensor Tag System”, looking at www.wirelesstag.net for presence detection, among other things. Conceptually it looks good. It has a URL based API which facilitates vera integration. Unfortunately the implementation is reported to be flakey …

[quote=“mbairhead, post:32, topic:172570”]Just got mine this weekend and I’m disappointed.

Occupancy Monitor - This is actually what I was hoping to get out of this, put one tag in the glove box of each of our cars and when they both are gone, run an “away” scene. Of course this won’t work since it loses communication with the tags so often.[/quote]

Edit2: There is also the [Plugin] Google Latitude (Beta), the kind of solution previously mentioned by RichardTSchaefer. Note that Google latitude also works off Wifi detection. So you don’t need battery draining GPS to be on all the time.

Edit3: Fixed urls.

#22

Sorry for resurrecting this, but this is a very interesting read.

I have recently start to think about this, and have come across the different threads mentioning the WIAB (Wasp in a Box) algorithm, and have perused the pages of DreamGreenHouse (that’s another good read!).

I suppose it really does come down to using multiple technologies/sensors. Lucky for me I have a Yale deadbolt door lock. If I open it from the inside, Vera knows. (I suppose other deadbolt locks can notify Vera too.) My back door (Schlage lever lock) can only sense if I unlock it via a PIN code. The good thing is, I have garage door sensors. So following WIAB, unless the front door or garage doors have been opened, someone is still in the house (if starting from an occupied state). If starting from an empty state, an opening of the garage door, or a PIN code at the front or back doors will mean that the house is now occupied. If Vera mistakenly thinks the house is empty but someone turns on a Z-wave switch, or uses a device that the Ping plugin recognizes, or if a PIR motion sensor is triggered, then Vera can easily correct itself.

@Akbooer, you may have created scenes to implement this. Is it possible to create a scene, identify all the triggers that would turn a Virtual Switch (signifying house occupancy) on, but only need at least ONE and not ALL those triggers? I tried doing this but Vera says the action will only be done if ALL conditions are met.

#23

i use NFC tags for it. since other ppl (like family and friends and so) have no business in my house this works well. my little brother has a key to my house and he got a android phone and as soon as he is at the frontdoor he auto-connects to the wifi and then the NFC tag can make the phone send a i’m home signal to vera, disabling the alarm and turning on the tv,stereo etc. automaticly
when he leaves he just put his phone against the NFC tag and it toggles the virtual switch, turning on the alarm and shutdown the equipment. case im home the NFC tag doesnt work as it disables alarm, which is allready disabled and the equipment is allready ON then. when he leaves and im home he knows that he doesnt need to touch the tag. can disable it with another virtual switch in line with the one for the NFC tag. works for me.

#24

Yes, I’ve used scenes and, more recently, Luup code for a slightly more sophisticated implementation.

I’m not understanding your problem, since, as you describe it, that is exactly how scene triggers do work… any one of them fires the scene, which would turn on the occupancy switch. A separate scene would just have one trigger (door closed) to clear the occupancy switch.

For an enhancement, I’ve added some Luup code which delays (and possibly cancels) the action of clearing the occupancy for a few minutes to handle the situation where you just go out to get the mail / empty the trash / … and then come in again shortly afterwards.

#25

So are you saying that for multiple triggers in the same scene, it’s an OR not an AND?

Yes, I’ve used scenes and, more recently, Luup code for a slightly more sophisticated implementation.

I’m not understanding your problem, since, as you describe it, that is exactly how scene triggers do work… any one of them fires the scene, which would turn on the occupancy switch. A separate scene would just have one trigger (door closed) to clear the occupancy switch.

For an enhancement, I’ve added some Luup code which delays (and possibly cancels) the action of clearing the occupancy for a few minutes to handle the situation where you just go out to get the mail / empty the trash / … and then come in again shortly afterwards.[/quote]

#26

Yes, indeed.

#27

Yes, indeed.[/quote]

to “bypass” this i made “controller scenes”, holding all triggers for a item … and executing then (via luup) what i want … so i have very litle code to copy.
or i just set a variable to true which is beeing checked in the main luup code later.

as example i have a “backdoor controller” …
covers all triggers for the door sensor and the lock.

the triggers are lock-management (battery, pin codes, and other usage)
plus door open, door unlocked, door armed unlock, door open while armeed and so on
gives alot more felxibility and i dont have to take the “lua-thinking” into account.

#28

the “problem” is if use the network for Security as well.

in my case it comes down to replicating the standard behaviour of the peoples inside usally.

there are 3 things i do set manually
“wife works Morning shift”, “wife works late shift”, “i do work (at home)”.

on “morning shift” my car does exclusively trigger the “away status” (car gone = away)
but on late shift, i may go out but someone still in the house, so the away works only in combination with the “sleep button pressed before”
if i work (its just a scene i execute on the in-wall tablet) … it “simulates away” … does the same but does not flip the Armed virtual switch to ON …

so the lemming-mode is covered very well.

since everyone (except me) is quite TV addicted arround here, i use the TV’s status and Mobile Ping sensors to re-detect occupancy
the problem is switching back from this staus.

since turning off the tv and a sleeping mobilephone not always mean everyone is gone…
i think that is the most tricky part … detecting the non-occupancy status without human interaction.

#29

perhaps you could combine this with a motion-sensor and the door-sensor ? in like tv=off mobile=sleep and front door-sensor opened and within 5 minutes closed and no motion for half an hour

#30

Yeah, sort of that i’m doing at the moment,
Just too bad the door lock can not differenciate between “locked by key” and “locked manually”
That would pretty much solve it.

Lock secured from outside= gone

Its so simple, but the lock doesnt, it reports locked of course, but not how.

But your idea with the door sensor is good,

If door open and closed and door lock event happens = gone
If just the door lock event happens = prep to sleep

Still some flaws, but i think i can handle that with a few years of training :stuck_out_tongue:

Oh btw, how do you do “if things happen within some time” in luup ?

#31

mm i wouldn’t know. i guess PLEG comes in handy there ?

#32

Could use the “lock event” to trigger a timer
And check delayed the “LastTrip” on the door sensor.
That would work i guess, but abit dodgy

#33

or a check motion-sensor and within few minute door-sensor trip… that way you would know if someone went out.

#34

…this is exactly what the modification to ‘Wasp in a Box’ does: if no ‘buzz’ (motion sensor triggered) within a few minutes of the door-closed event, then set status to ‘out’.

#35

thats vice versa but that would work too indeed… didnt read the article about it.

#36

Take a look at http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,16907.0.html if you have an iDevice

#37

i did … it uses unsecure connection to internet as well as a lot of webservices to do just 1 simple thing… so for me not usable…

#38

Point taken :slight_smile: wish BLE was an option. SmartThings uses a Zigbee Fob which works well, but I don’t like SmartThings dependence on Cloud Services with no local control (none internet) and no support for cameras in interface.

#39

yeah the bluetooth 4 proximity tags would certainly be a great addition.

#40

i agree … but the current state of battery managements and phones handling things, and the need to make the device itself take action … make this a complete false in itself.

IF the beacons where active (able to detect a certain device and do a action via WiFi or whatever) … then this where somethings really worth it.
but as long the phone itself steps into the role of a “controller” with a App or whatever, this is just something not worth looking at it …

dont get me wrong, the idea is great … (i’m 100% behind it)
but this pushes the whole thing back in the box of “home remote control” and away from “home automation”

if there where active beacons avaiable … or long range rfid scanners able to detect proximity … and affordable … i would have them for sure :wink: