I’ve tested it yesterday entering geozone with having the phone unlocked, with the app running in the foreground.
No reaction.
Maybe I am missing it, but I don’t see any release notes, other than the few words above and the demo video (which for me does not have any sound). I am specifically trying to see how to link Siri with a scene.
I also find it annoying that geofencing is limited to 3km (ie, what if I want to turn on thermostat to a higher setting well in advance?) and that scenes created w/ geofencing do not show up on the unit when accessing either directly or via the Vera proxy. What if I want to modify the configuration on a non-mobile device?
Open the app and make sure you are connected to your controller.
After the first connect we start suggesting Siri your scenes names and they will become available in Shortcuts app.
Here are the steps on how to create shortcuts:
I think the plug in you’re looking for is the iPhone locator plugin.
Today I had opportunity to go through couple of geofences I have which trigger real scenes (my previous test were on geofences for which I have only notifications).
And it seems that geofencing itself is working. The house mode changes accordingly to the location, scene which should be triggered when entering a certain geofence works as well.
What is not working though, are notifications. I can only tell that geofences works because I see that certain actions are performed. But I’m not notified anymore about entering or leaving any from 5 geofences I have, regardless that notifications are turned ON for each of them
Good to realize that geofences are in fact working, but I would like to see notifications again.
You can create another geofence on your way and run a scene when entering or leaving that location.
I have such setting for my vacation home - the water heater starts running when I’m still about 20km from that home, and the whole logic is triggered by a geofence set up on the way.
What app version are you running?
app version from tech support page: 3.28 (4)
App store version I have is 3.29
C
For me It seems that geofencing is working as it did before (spotty at best) but notifications are not.
“You can create another geofence on your way and run a scene when entering or leaving that location.”
I may be missing something but how in Vera can you detect enter/exit of the geofence. Are you using Reactor or some other app?
I know I can put some Lua code in but if there’s an easier way that would be great.
Hmm, the Test flight version is 3.28 and the App Store Verion is 3.29 …
The geofence works using native phone capabilities.
When you create a geofence, we register that region to your phone’s operating system to be monitored.
When you enter or exit the region, the phone will wake up the app in background for few seconds. In that time frame the app sends the event to the cloud.
The geofence accuracy really depends on the phone’s ability to detect your location and phone model.
For iOS : make sure you have the wifi open, location permission set to always and background refresh on.
Small notes:
- first time you cross a newly created geofence Vera will not treat it as an event, it will be considered the reference position. So every geofence will start working second time you cross it, after its creation.
- we don’t monitor your location all the time, the os wakes up the app only when you cross a geofence
- if you use multiple devices: a geofence created on device 1 will start working for device 2 after you connect at least once on it (because it needs to be registered to the operating system)
They have the same code base and same feature set. 3.29 has a small config difference. Sorry for the confusion I created with 2 versions.
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I’m having the no geofencing issues as well. I’m running iOS 13.2.3, Vera app version 3.29, and Vera Edge firmware 1.7.4832. I am not receiving any notifications when entering or exiting the geofence and the other night a geofence triggered event did not fire either when entering the geofence. The home state does not change either when entering or leaving the geofence. I have location settings to always on on the two devices (both iPhones X) that I use for geofencing. Both have background app refresh on for both WiFi and cellular. One thing I have noticed when I check location settings under privacy, location services, then Vera app, the location icon will change to solid purple, indicating that the phone is picking up the geofence but the app or the controller are not interpreting the commands from the phone correctly.
Ugghhh battery killing background app refresh. Why does it seem to work fine on an iPhone SE without background app refresh enabled?
Enabling background app refresh on Vera won’t drain your battery. We don’t download data and we don’t wake up the app periodically (like facebook or mail app). The only context we use background mode is geofence.
Apple explicitly says in geofence documentation that background mode needs to be enabled for monitoring to work when the app is closed.
I don’t know why it used to work without it. Apple is changing the rules all the time.
They mentioned changes and fixes on the way apps behave in background in the release notes of iOS 13.2.2 and 13.2.3. This type of changes may impact the geofence by not waking up the app or killing it before we send the event to the cloud.
We are monitoring all this issues really close and test how geofence triggers on daily basis.
A new vera ios app update will be available on Monday, with some config changes that may help.
Has there been any consideration of re-trying until the Vera unit acknowledges? i.e. make it a bi-directional communication? I’ve given up on the inbuilt geofence since all the reasons given don’t seem to apply to iPhone Locator (maybe because of the 'we don’t track your location all the time, and it just doesn’t work reliably enough, but that seems a pretty obvious way of eliminating the ‘iPhone notifies but unit never responds’ scenario…
No offence intended
C
I’m running iOS 12 and support told me probably 6 months ago that it was controller or sever side they could see the phone requests but the controller would time out. I have the emails and the case number if you would like. It doesn’t seem like there has been any effort to make the Vera geofencing reliable. It seems that if you want geofencing to be reliable you need to use the the locator app.
I’ll take function and reliability over fashion any day of the week.
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First you create geofence at specified place.
Then, on your mobile, you create a scene where you choose location as a trigger. You will have option to choose which gefoence you would like to set as a trigger and option to set it on entering or exiting such location.
Location based triggers are only available when setting the scene on the mobile, and such scenes are not visible on the web interface.
You can use Reactor as well, but I would recommend it for more complex logic.
For example I have a logic where th water at my vacation home is turned on (main valve, pump, boiler, etc.) when I’m on the way there.
To avoid the scene being triggered when I’m going back, I set two separate geofences on the route which I drive, then defined reactor rule to trigger the scene only when I pass both locations in certain order and within specified time frame.