At home / away?

[Michael_K]

Hello.
I'm new to MySensors. I have a Z-Wave system (Homeseer), and would like to tell it that I'm away, and that I've returned.
I researched RFID, and found a system that would do it (UHF, active transponder tag). I even found an inexpensive interrogator ($150).
But, I'm wondering if MySensors would be better suited for this project. And, I have 4 other projects for my MySensor network, to augment my Z-Wave system.

Has anyone tried this?

Being new to MySensors, I think that the only way to accomplish this task would be for me to put a node in my car (powered when the car is running), and for the system to watch for the loss/reconnection of that node. Is that practical?

[zboblamont]

@michael_k Have you considered a phone link latching via bluetooth or similar? Unless you do not have a mobile phone of course.
Fairly sure somebody very recently posted a piece where his electric car charger would only activate if he was getting close to home, how it was done I cannot recall....

[sundberg84]

@michael_k - I'm just using a geofence on our cell phones triggering a fake device in the controller.

[gohan]

Other people are using BT Le tags or smart bands that get scanned for their Mac address

[tbowmo]

I just use the wifi/lan, and check which mac addresses is connected.. If I see my phone on the wifi/lan, I must be at home..

Depends on the capabilities of your router / AP's though..

[Yveaux]

@tbowmo recent Android (and probably ios too) disables wifi when the phone is at rest for some time. You aren't able to distinguish between phone at rest and phone away...
I had to give up this route...

[sundberg84]

@yveaux i use tasker and wifi change so when I connect/disconnect to my home wifi I send a command. Works great but I understand the difficulty with ping.

[dbemowsk]

@sundberg84 if what @Yveaux says is correct, wouldn't the phone constantly connect and disconnect and trigger tasker?

[sundberg84]

@dbemowsk it doesn't... I don't know if there is a delay in tasker so the wifi comes online before. This works great for me.

Edit; There is both "wifi near" and "wifi connected" in tasker and this might be the difference. In using "wifi near"

[dbemowsk]

@sundberg84 I have tasker on my phone. I will have to try this. I had some issues on one of my previous phones so I didn't use tasker as much as I thought I would. I woner if it will work better on my Samsung Galaxy S8+. It would also be nice if I could get geofencing working too.

[Michael_K]

@zboblamont
BT sounds good. But, I don't exactly want to use my phone's BT (would have to keep it on).
Perhaps there's some kind of BT device I can put in my car (powered when running), and connect to something that can talk to my HA system.

@sundberg84
I don't really like the geofence method -- I rarely have location turned on.

@tbowmo
Actually, that's what I have now. Tasker watches for when my phone's wifi connects and disconnects from my LAN, and notifies my HA system (which has a Tasker plugin). But, as @Yveaux mentioned, it's not quite ideal.

@dbemowsk
I think that Tasker knows the difference between 'wifi radio on/off' and 'connected/disconnected from and near/not near LAN'.

[wallyllama]

Would somesort of passive rfid tag attached to your keychain work?

Edit - a quick google search for keyfinder came up with a variety of bluetooth/gps tags, some in bulk for under $2 USD. Probably come with an app, but that could likely be subverted into something mysensors compatible.

[tbowmo]

@yveaux
I'm pretty sure that I can see new phones (both iPhone X and Samsung galaxy s9 devices) on my access point, even if they haven't been used for a while.

But I haven't used the presence detection the last couple of years.

[Michael_K]

@wallyllama
Passive RFID doesn't have the required range (a max of ~1 m?)

[Michael_K]

Well, I have an idea that might work!
Attach this to an Arduino. (Note that there's also a UART version.) Then, all I need is a Bluetooth transponder beacon tag (which I'd leave in the car).
Conveniently, I'd still need MySensors to implement this!

[tbowmo]

@Michael_K

That only detects if your car is there or not.. If you take your bike, or just walk to a bus stop, then it won't detect your presence :)

[gohan]

So far the cheapest solution I found is using an esp32 that scans for nearby BT devices (look at the Andreas Spiess video on his channel) but I don't know if it will be compatible with mysensors

[Yveaux]

@gohan said in At home / away?:

scans for nearby BT devices

But then you have to place quite a lot of receivers to cover your whole house, I assume?

[wallyllama]

I'm going to go a bit conceptual here, riffing on some ideas that I believe I got from @dbemowsk. A multi-pronged approach may be useful here, maybe bt for the car and bicycle, amount of time since any PIR device triggered, time of day, etc. Then using the "smarts" of a smarthome a reasonable estimate of home/away can be gained.

I dont think an A.I. like the googazon has is required, but something smarter than a single node might be apropriate.

[gohan]

@yveaux correct