How to make HC2 know when "MY CAR" arrives at home

[MWDK 1]

I want to run a scene when my car arrives back home.. What is the best way of doing it? It needs to be bulletproof

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Im thinking that it needs to run a scene if my status is away AND my car arrives on the road in front of the house. I then want the scene to open the main gate, open the garage door, turn on the garden light, garage light, path light to the house and so on..

But how to include my car propperly?

Im sure you clever Guys have thought about it and have a sollution

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Thanks!

/Marc

[SDeath 63]

How about maybe an old phone with GPS and the Fibaro app and a data connection?

Make sure it's powered by the car battery, and add some protction against deep charging the car battery.

Then follow it with your Home Centre and use GPS scene triggers when entering or leaving you house area.

[fkruis2 0]

Does gps tracking work then ?, because for me it never worked

[SDeath 63]

Does gps tracking work then ?, because for me it never worked

It did when I started with this HC2 in March 2013.

I stopped using it because it used so much battery power from my iPhone.

I'll try now.

[Dalle1985 15]

Set up an RPI in a watertight enclosure with a bluetooth dongle and then stick an estimote tag in your car... When it comes within range (30 m) the rpi sends a http call to the hc2 which runs your arriving at home scene. The programming should be pretty straight forward.

[MWDK 1]

GPS function doesnt Work im afraid... Tried it

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Is the RPI simple to setup Dalle?

I also have a 4G modem in the car - maybe its possible to do it when the WIFI is in range of the house?

Any particular RPI you would use for it Dalle?

Thanks so far!

[SDeath 63]

Nope doesn't work indeed.

I switched to pinging my iPhone to see if we are at home or not, back when I stopped using the GPS function. Maybe you can do the same if your car connects to the Wifi network.

Although I don't think it's the best way as you might be waiting before the car connects to the Wifi.

Good luck in your hunt for the best solution. =-)

[Dalle1985 15]

Not to difficult there are lots of guides on the web on how to set up the RPi.

A wifi solution will work indeed as well. All you need to do is have a server ping the device in your car or look for the mac address of the device. When it is present - you are home.

But none of these systems are bullet proof. What is really needed is a new step up in presence detection.

The closest you could probably get is a dedicated gps tracking device with a web based geofencing solution. Expensive, but much more reliable than any other wireless communications system. My guess is that a tracking fob costs around 1000 dkk and the service fee is 2-400 dkk annually. The device will also double as a theft tracking device for your car which can give a discount on the insurance.

[U5tabil 2]

GPS dont seem reliable at all. iv been trying to get this working for some time now. making a simple variable where im home/away wont work not even on a simple lamp or anything. I will most likely give that up all together.

Your best shot i guess is to have a remote control button in the car that can signal your system to do a comand or something.

[Guest fat]

Have you thought about an Aeotec key fob that runs a scene to do what you want? You could clip it to the visor of your car and press the button when at your gate

[Dalle1985 15]

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I'd use something like this personally. I'm sure you probably know someone who can install it in your car for you. That will send you an SMS based on certain parameters. Then all you need is a webserver (coming back to that RPi again) with a 3/4G dongle capable of receiving an SMS. You can get standard packages for the RPi which can handle sms traffic and convert it into running i.e. a shell or php script which triggers the scene.

Now regarding the use of GPS features, you should all remember that what your phones are equipped with is not true GPS all the time. The GPS radio in the phone looks for very faint signals. This means that the receiver must be quite high powered. This costs battery (my old Nokia N95 which was my first real gps phone sucked the battery dry in 2 hours flat when gps was enabled)... Therefore all modern phones use a form of AGPS, assisted GPS, which is a fanzy word for saying it uses a database with the location of wifi networks to guestimate a position, (if it knows where the wifi network is and you know roughly the range, you have a range plot). The wifi chip use a lot less power when just scanning and therefore, your "GPS" position is actually a WiFi range position - which is a lot less precise. Therefore, the precision might mean that the position it reports is outside your range. Also, to save power, the position isn't updated constantly unless an app specifically requests it, so the position will only be updated according to the system setup of your phone - which might be anything from once every 3 minutes to once an hour.

This is why phones make for such horrendous geo-fencing devices. The alternative is that the fibaro as is configured to actively request a position update every so often, but this WILL cause battery drain. Add to that, that the fibaro app probably doesn't exchange data with your server very often when dormant (i.e. In your pocket or in the cars charger).

[Milos797 0]

Hi guys, I am sure there is another product for this, but just for the idea I found this one:

Flash2pass

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What it does? You install one in your car (connect it with the lighting wires somehow) and one on your gate (and of corse with fibaro modul...). Then, when you come to your house, you double click your light in your car and the gate open. And the Fibaro posibilities starts with the modul connected, I am sure you know how to

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There is one product which works with Fibaro (smaller than this), I am sure guys from Fibaro Krakow will tell you more

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This is the sollution you can see on fibaro videos

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[Guest Hakanos]

I use geofancy on my iphone and works really good. When I am within the set proximity a scene starts. Trust me, I have tried a lot of things but this works the best for me

[SDeath 63]

I use geofancy on my iphone and works really good. When I am within the set proximity a scene starts. Trust me, I have tried a lot of things but this works the best for me

Care to explain a bit how this works? Thanks.

Fijne jaarwisseling!

[rantta 2]

Geofancy:

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[SDeath 63]

Geofancy:

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Yeah I found their website and the app but it doesn't really explain how it works and how to set it up with the HC2.

[Guest Hakanos]

You can define a location and set a proximity. When you enter or leave that location you can send a http request to your hc2. This way you can start any scene or whatever.

[SDeath 63]

You can define a location and set a proximity. When you enter or leave that location you can send a http request to your hc2. This way you can start any scene or whatever.

Thanks for explaining!

How's battery life with the app running?

[Guest Hakanos]

Battery life is great. I did not notice any difference. Sure there is some, but way way better than the gps tracking of fibaro

[SDeath 63]

Battery life is great. I did not notice any difference. Sure there is some, but way way better than the gps tracking of fibaro

Sounds good, I made a test scene to notify (Pushover) me when I'm gone to see how things work.

Thanks for this.