I have a few old automations that are designed to unlock my front door, or open my garage door, depending on how I leave. If I ride my bike or car, it opens my garage, if I leave via front door, it opens the front door. Pretty simple. Except!!! I did this in pieces, so it’s 2 separate automations. One detects my phone entering the “home zone”, the other detects an event firing (iOS triggered the event via ‘shortcuts’)

There is now “zone based” automations, and there is also my “person entity”. So the way I see it, I have 3 different ways to tell when I come home:

  1. My phone’s gps enters the ‘home zone’

  2. My HA ‘person’ state changes from ‘away’ to ‘home’

  3. My phone’s shortcut app fires an event that is detected.

I feel like #1 and #2 are the same, no? I only have one device linked to my person entity, and it’s my phone. Is there any difference in this case? Is there a preferred choice?

  • spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    1 day ago

    Shelly makes tiny smart switch modules that fit inside any switch box and are cheap enough to put at each door. In combination with the Bermuda BLE Trilateration integration they can detect where in (or near) the house you are. Ours are used to turn on lights and disable camera alerts before they can trigger. It’s amazing to have the inside and outside lights come on when we’re 30’+ away and haven’t even stopped the car or when we get close to the house after taking a walk. They provide some great functionality in addition to BLE for less than $20.