Presence sensor help

[jamenlang]

Hi.  My wife and I both have smart phones that connect to wifi.  They are the only presence sensors that are enabled.  How are they supposed to work? I figured that home and away modes would be set automatically but that dosent seem to be the case.  I set up notifications to prove that my  devices are connected but the mode never changes.

[Ashok]

@ jamenlang,

You can change the modes automatically, by creating rules. Try to create rules based on Device joining and leaving, however, ensure that while the device leaves there is a default grace period of 6 minutes which can be customized.

[fillibar]

We have that same scenario. You would create 3 Rules:
1) IF both devices Inactive AND Mode is Home THEN set Mode to Away.
2) IF first device (your phone) is Active and Mode is Away THEN set Mode to Home.
3) IF second device (your wife's phone) is Active and Mode is Away THEN set Mode to Home.

[jamenlang]

So the presence sensor option is arbitrary and doesn't actually do anything other than label the device as a presence sensor?

[mparadis]

The presence sensor can be used in a rule to perform some action. Nothing is setup automatically, once set up it will set to home / away as desired if you use the rules listed by FIllibar.

[jamenlang]

But what makes it special? I have 40 devices listed in my network and only two of them are flagged as presence sensors. I can choose from every device in the list for rules. This leads me to believe there is a different purpose for the presence sensor flag. Is it a WIP? Arbitrary? Forgotten feature?

[fillibar]

They are special because they will then show up in the Network Devices list at the very end of the IF section of Rules. From there you can pick ANY of those to be used as a trigger for the Rule, whether active or inactive.

It exists for any network device because it can be relevant for any. Even a wired network device. What if you want something done when the power goes out? My Almond+ has a battery backup. But how do I tell it? One option is a presence sensor using a wired network device that is always on, but not vital enough to have a UPS.

But mostly I use them with wireless devices. Smartphones, Amazon Dash buttons are most common for me. But sometimes it has been useful to track a Particle Photon and alert me when it went offline (by turning on a colored status light) in addition to the app alert (sometimes I do not carry my phone in the house). That particular one helped me track down why one of my projects kept dropping offline so I could fix the code.

But the absolute most common use (for me) is the examples I previously posted.

[jamenlang]

 Thanks for your help. I guess I'm going to be making rules for eternity

[fillibar]

Is there a particular example you are trying for? Securifi is always looking for ideas even if they already have piles to go through and decide on. But if you have some unique/new idea you are trying to implement, post about it and maybe someone can either help or it will spark something for the future.