How to detect Presence

Community Playground General Discussions
1

Can I use the PLEG app to detect presence of my wife and I? I am trying to automate the house modes home and away. I would like it to set to away when the systems sees that my wife and I are not home. What I am trying to avoid is when I get home my home scene runs and when she gets home her scene runs is there a way to set them dependent on one another?. or when leaving, if she leaves I dont want it to set to away if I am still at home.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

2

PLEG cant detect presence. You’ll need some other way to do the detection. But, once you have “detected” presences, such as with ping, or Geofencing, or RFID, or some other method, you can use PLEG to determine when to change modes.

You can use PLEG to change to away mode only after both are not home. You can use PLEG to perform arrival activities only when the first arrives home and not again when the second arrives.

Various techniques are discussed in the forums. The difficulty is only in accurate presence detection.

3

I was reading about the Ping and Geofencing, is the RFID done with an app? Do you have any experience with any of these methods?

Thank you for the reply.

4

As Z-waver said above, there are a lot of different ways to do it. You will need to research this forum to find the one that works best for your situation.

Personally, I have my Android phone (running Tasker) send a command to Vera to run the “HoneyIamHome” scene when the phone first connects to my home WiFi.

I wave my phone across an RFID chip when I am ready to leave home (turns on the garage light, sends a scene command to Vera, and sets the phone lock).

5

@aa6vh, two questions; how are you accomplishing the RFID chip with said phone and why are you using two different techniques one on Wifi and the other with RFID chip?

Its becoming difficult to sieve through the numerous threads to determine working solutions… most seem to have issues of some sort it would be nice to see working examples with apps used, virtual switches and mode changes and/or other e.g. RFID chip readers with rational. Mike

6

Ping sensor, ping every 15 seconds. Timeout after 15 mins. Sent your phone to check your email every 15 mins. This works quite accurately on mine and my wifes iPhones.

Combined with motion detectors for unoccupied state its 100% reliable in my case.

PLEG would look something like this in the conditions

Myphone OR wifesphone sets Home

!Myphone AND !wifesphone AND !motion and (!motion; Now > 15:00) sets AWAY

name your own variables, phones here are ping sensors, motions… you get the idea.

7

One of the easiest ways I have found to do this, thanks to someone on this forum, is to put a magnet on your key ring and a door sensor near where your keys are stored.
Of course, in your situation you will need two sensors, two key rings magnets, two sets of keys and pleg to work out the details.
Works great if single person in the home but If multiple people in the home with kids, could be tricky.
Just thought I would throw it out there.

8

Has anyone here tried these kind of occupancy sensors?
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/thomas-research-products/OMNIIRL/1121-1274-ND/4806616

9

You would need a 24v power supply, the dry contract model, and something to interface with (DSC panel). Nothing too special, but it would basically just be another motion detector, not really for sensing occupancy for a whole house.