HomeKit Users

[Nhott]

Update: feature request was added/fixed.


Edit: I deleted all of the automations and created new ones. Works as it should now. This is going to make a lot of people happy.

HomeKit is still missing a much needed feature. There needs to be a setting for automating first person arrival. For example the first person home sets off an automation stating that; if it’s after sunset turn on the den lights to 100% and the set the thermostat to 74°. Let’s say that my fiancé was the first one home and before I arrive is now watching TV in the den with the lights at 27% and the thermostat at 72°. When I arrive home I now want the automation to do nothing because quite frankly that would be nothing short of an annoyance and inconvenience if the automation were to run again.

 

[Feenician]

HomeKit is still missing a much needed feature. There needs to be a setting for automating first person arrival. For example the first person home sets off an automation stating that; if it’s after sunset turn on the den lights to 100% and the set the thermostat to 74°. Let’s say that my fiancé was the first one home and before I arrive is now watching TV in the den with the lights at 27% and the thermostat at 72°. When I arrive home I now want the automation to do nothing because quite frankly that would be nothing short of an annoyance and inconvenience if the automation were to run again.

The “When People Arrive” automation is for “when any of these people arrive”. As far as I can tell, it does exactly what you want? Am I misunderstanding your requirement maybe?

To do it now I have a homebridge setup. This has the concept of “Anyone” and “No-one”, as well as each individual, as presence detectors but I think I can ditch that particular piece when she updates to iOS 11 and we updated the Apple TV in the fall.

 

[Nhott]

I just tried it and it activates every time someone arrives not just the first person. I’ll reset it and try again if that’s its intended purpose.

 

[Feenician]

I just tried it and it activates every time someone arrives not just the first person. I’ll reset it and try again if that’s its intended purpose.

Ah, I see, As I said, I haven’t tried it yet as it’s only me on iOS 11 (hence the reason I cannot put a tick on the 2nd person in the screenshot below). Are you both on iOS 11 beta? Anyway, wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if its buggy at this point but the description of the function is pretty clear.




Hopefully a reset will fix it but, if not, it should get fixed later.

 

[mmomega]

There's so much traffic in and out of my house there's no way I could do any sort of automation. Any sensing a phone coming or leaving a geofence would be a complete bad idea here.

There's my wife coming and going, myself coming and going, my son who moves as much as a dead person, the housekeepers coming and going, my nephew in and out, step-son/his girlfriend.
It's a very active house until 8-9pm every day when people are winding down.

Tried it once and it didn't work very well. Good if it was me and me only.

 

[Feenician]

There's so much traffic in and out of my house there's no way I could do any sort of automation. Any sensing a phone coming or leaving a geofence would be a complete bad idea here.

There's my wife coming and going, myself coming and going, my son who moves as much as a dead person, the housekeepers coming and going, my nephew in and out, step-son/his girlfriend.
It's a very active house until 8-9pm every day when people are winding down.

Tried it once and it didn't work very well. Good if it was me and me only.

A large, active household definitely complicates things but a good portion of those people wouildn’t make much difference for a lot of automations, would they? The presence/no presence thing only applies to people you’ve added as delegated users for your home. Since most presence automations for i.e. a thermostat is “someone here, make it comfortable” or “no-one here. Let it get a bit hotter or colder” it doesn’t seem like the number of people matter too much?

 

[Nhott]

Ah, I see, As I said, I haven’t tried it yet as it’s only me on iOS 11 (hence the reason I cannot put a tick on the 2nd person in the screenshot below). Are you both on iOS 11 beta? Anyway, wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if its buggy at this point but the description of the function is pretty clear.

I have an old 5s that my daughter plays with so I upgraded that.

 

[mmomega]

Even if there was something like turn on these lights when I arrive or off when I leave. Someone in the house could have lights off and I walk in and they come on and need to be turned back off. Or say 3 people are in the kitchen and I leave and the lights turn off.
Maybe things can be fine tuned a bit but if it was just my wife and myself I could go full on Jarvis mode. At the moment I can't see any products out that would fully do what I would picture full automation doing. Yet.

At the moment my main entrance/exit is my garage. So I have a wireless motion sensor to a smart switch so when the door opens, the garage lights come on, after inactivity the lights go off. I come in through the laundry room to another motion sensor which turns that light on and after a couple minutes will turn them off.
I say Alexa turn everything on and that turns on the Kitchen, kitchen under cabinet lighting, over sink, living room, living room fan, foyer, dining room lights, the TV, AV Receiver and AppleTV. So the word everything is tied to those rooms and things. So there's also an echo dot on my nightstand also where I can say turn everything off and all of those go off.
The bedroom lights and lamps are different names not part of 'everything' so that it doesn't kill the house completely.
A handful of things at the moment are HomeKit and are done with Hey Siri.

I've toyed around with homebridge to connect even non HomeKit things to HomeKit and Siri and I liked it but had it running on a desktop but am looking into something like a raspberrypi3 being the bridge so I don't have to buy new equipment and everything will just work together and not have to be tied to my desktop that I am constantly messing with and breaking the homebridge setup I had.

 

[Feenician]

Even if there was something like turn on these lights when I arrive or off when I leave. Someone in the house could have lights off and I walk in and they come on and need to be turned back off. Or say 3 people are in the kitchen and I leave and the lights turn off.
Maybe things can be fine tuned a bit but if it was just my wife and myself I could go full on Jarvis mode. At the moment I can't see any products out that would fully do what I would picture full automation doing. Yet.

At the moment my main entrance/exit is my garage. So I have a wireless motion sensor to a smart switch so when the door opens, the garage lights come on, after inactivity the lights go off. I come in through the laundry room to another motion sensor which turns that light on and after a couple minutes will turn them off.
I say Alexa turn everything on and that turns on the Kitchen, kitchen under cabinet lighting, over sink, living room, living room fan, foyer, dining room lights, the TV, AV Receiver and AppleTV. So the word everything is tied to those rooms and things. So there's also an echo dot on my nightstand also where I can say turn everything off and all of those go off.
The bedroom lights and lamps are different names not part of 'everything' so that it doesn't kill the house completely.
A handful of things at the moment are HomeKit and are done with Hey Siri.

I've toyed around with homebridge to connect even non HomeKit things to HomeKit and Siri and I liked it but had it running on a desktop but am looking into something like a raspberrypi3 being the bridge so I don't have to buy new equipment and everything will just work together and not have to be tied to my desktop that I am constantly messing with and breaking the homebridge setup I had.

Your route indoors and setup sound quite similar to mine, though you definitely have the complication of (a lot) more people around.

I have a pi3 (third pi in as many months, used for various things, street successfully ignoring them for years!) running homebridge after playing with it on my Mac for a while too. Apart from the presence stuff it's also bridging the myQ/Liftmaster garage door and giving a bit more flexibility in the Hue sensors. It is definitely a bit fragile when adding, removing or reconfiguring it but works well otherwise.

I don't have time tonight but feel free to pm if you want to chat about the trials and tribulations of homekit and homebridge.

 

[Nhott]

Hopefully a reset will fix it but, if not, it should get fixed later.

Edit: I deleted all of the automations and created new ones. Works as it should now. This is going to make a lot of people happy. Updated first post.

 

[Nhott]

Hey. They added it. That’s exactly what I was looking for.