So I used to use iBeacons with an app that no longer exists to do several things around the house that really made my home “automated” and not remote control. One of them had my wife buy into the whole home automation thing and I REALLY want (read NEED) it back. I set up iBeacons to know when we were both in bed, start a count down timer and then shut the house down and do a bunch of other stuff (set sleep timer on TV and adjust thermostats etc). One of the features required for this to work is it needs to know when one of us leaves the bedroom (stops/resets the timer). The old app had an Present and Away state and did this very well, but no one does this now. I’ve worked with the VeraMate folks but it simply isn’t there yet and doesn’t seem to be a priority (and I get it, I’m just one guy).
SO…any suggestions on how I can get this to work without iBeacons? I don’t want to push buttons, this needs to run automatically and NOT on a schedule.
No solutions from me, but I would like this functionality as well.
Curious how reliable you found the ibeacons–I tried them and they just didn’t seem reliable enough to depend on. They kept losing the connection to the phone momentarily, so would assume I was out of the room.
[quote=“tb001, post:2, topic:187894”]No solutions from me, but I would like this functionality as well.
Curious how reliable you found the ibeacons–I tried them and they just didn’t seem reliable enough to depend on. They kept losing the connection to the phone momentarily, so would assume I was out of the room.[/quote]
Yes, they do that a LOT but I found that if I set a timer for all the functions (timer plug in) it would make it much more stable for some reason. It worked almost flawlessly for about a year. The way it actually worked was:
Enter iBeacon > Turn virtual switch on (one virtual switch for each of us) > when both virtual switches were on > start 15 minute timer > at end of the timer run “Both in bed” scene. If one of us entered the iBeacon but left before the timer had counted down it would reset. I had one iBeacon on each nightstand and set to the shortest range possible, which worked out well since we both charge our phones on our nightstands at night.
@mbairhead - I had meant to get back to you on this, but modifications for Apple Watch have taken up a lot more time then I thought. With 9.2 bedded down, I can get back to some of the dev backlog - if you’re willing I can look into the last problem (with the trigger on exit), and get you a beta of the next version to try. Ping a mail through VeraMate to support, and I’ll get you on the BETA when it’s ready.
That would be great, I’ll fire an email off today. I understand that you (everyone) has bigger priorities than my need/wants so I didn’t want to bug you. I appreciate you taking the time to look into this for me.
[quote=“mbairhead, post:3, topic:187894”][quote=“tb001, post:2, topic:187894”]No solutions from me, but I would like this functionality as well.
Curious how reliable you found the ibeacons–I tried them and they just didn’t seem reliable enough to depend on. They kept losing the connection to the phone momentarily, so would assume I was out of the room.[/quote]
Yes, they do that a LOT but I found that if I set a timer for all the functions (timer plug in) it would make it much more stable for some reason. It worked almost flawlessly for about a year. The way it actually worked was:
Enter iBeacon > Turn virtual switch on (one virtual switch for each of us) > when both virtual switches were on > start 15 minute timer > at end of the timer run “Both in bed” scene. If one of us entered the iBeacon but left before the timer had counted down it would reset. I had one iBeacon on each nightstand and set to the shortest range possible, which worked out well since we both charge our phones on our nightstands at night.[/quote]
Ah, interesting. Thanks for the tip! I was using one beacon placed in the middle of the bed, but if we could get it working reliably, it would be worth getting two. Which ibeacons are you using?
The only reason I’m using two is if I set them to be seen on either side of the bed, they could be seen from downstairs on the couch in the family room too. edit also (forgot) when they’re turned up enough to be seen all over the bedroom it tends to fire unexpectedly when you’re doing normal stuff like putting cloths away or cleaning.
I’m using the estimotes, so far they’ve been great. You have to take some time tweaking power and range settings but once you get them dialed in…great.
This is Wojtek from Estimote: randomly stumbled upon this thread going through my Google Alerts Cool to hear you like our beacons! There’s a host of home automation apps that you might want to check out with beacons. Those include Launch Center Pro (Contrast | Launch Center Pro), Roomie Remote (http://www.roomieremote.com/), and Beecon (http://www.beaconsandwich.com/). There’s of course more, but those are my favorites.
If you have any questions about Estimote Beacons, feel free to ping me at wojciech[at]estimote[dot]com!
Cheers.
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