SMART Proximity sensor for smart automations

[@rubencanmar515]

Helloooo!! Great video and really really clear, but just a doubt, everyone who is included in the devices must have Home assistant in their phone and conexión through a VPN or similar to monitor where they are?

[@BeardedTinker]

Depends how you can access HA from outside. It can be HA companion app or any other app/tracker for mobile phone that has HA integration. Also, it can be VPN, Cloudflare free account as "proxy", Nabu Casa account etc. But there needs to be a way for phone or similar tracker device to send data to HA. Nabu Casa as paid service is also best as it doesn't even require VPN and there is no to open any port, but costs money.

[@christofferappelhansen2250]

Proximity can also be set up in the ui, no need to do everything in yaml. This was added in 2024.2

[@BeardedTinker]

But the video is from May 2022

[@christofferappelhansen2250]

Oh yes, should have added not necessary anymore. This video originally led me to try the proximity, and have been using it ever since. Really useful sensor.

[@BeardedTinker]

@@christofferappelhansen2250 it is - I still use it myself for few core notifications.

[@plu2]

For anybody using the ignored_zones feature, there is a spelling error in the video. ignore_zone should be ignored_zones. Apart from that, great video as always, thank you!

[@BeardedTinker]

Nice catch, thank you!!!

[@PeterLindh]

Thanks for a great video! Would it be possible to get some more information on how to create and set up the notify_engine?

[@BeardedTinker]

I did video on it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o3yUqJemrc1_mK8 It's custom script that I've adapted from ccostan to support iOS and Android + other notification services.

[@ryanw501]

What kind of proximity sensor are u using for keys?

[@BeardedTinker]

Was using Tile previously, but due to privacy concern, decided to go for alternative - chipolo.net/en/ Don't use their app, just BLE beacon functionality to check if device is present or not.

[@amadeuszjakobczak7196]

@@BeardedTinker How Home Assistant is monitoring BT signal from BLE beacon ? Are you using espresense on ESP32 board ? I tried this but with very bad results. It was working well ony on short distance.

[@BeardedTinker]

Using Atom Echo Lite (3 of them) and one ESP32 mini board. I have a lot of active Bluetooth devices that are controlled with them. And since Shelly introduced it a few months ago, also some Shelly devices are now used as BLE proxies.

[@EsotericArctos]

Just thinking with your setup, would you ignore your ISS zone while monitoring the Home zone as an example? Or have I misunderstood the way it works? Would Proximity be a good replacement for the older "all devices" group that use to have "home" or "not_home" states depending on the status of every tracking device?

[@BeardedTinker]

Good question - no, I wouldn't need to ignore ISS zone since it uses different tracker. Only if same device tracker would be used, than I would have to put it in ignored list. As for second question - not really. Proximity sensor doesn't count devices in zone - if you are ok with that, than, yes, you can use it. For example if distance is 0 - user is in zone, and that's equivalent to "home". If distance is greater than 0, then it's "not_home". But you would need to count devices that are nearby to be sure if everyone is home.

[@JasperTielen]

I've seen some video about proximity with Google maps integration but I can't find any video that helps me install the Google maps integration.

[@BeardedTinker]

Google Maps integration is pain to setup. I had to repeate the process few times to get it working. There was also authentication issue because Google changed this process and newer users couldn't create proper cookie for it - not sure but I think this part is fixed now. In order to do it you have to follow documentation, and when you are retrieving cookie, you should do it in some other browser - even private mode can pool wrong info.

[@JasperTielen]

@@BeardedTinker thanks, then I will have to try a few more times.

[@JBR.1974]

another great video...I had to hit thumbs up as soon as I saw your wife person is not_bearded_tinker...because she "doesnt have a beard"

[@d00de83]

Tolerance 50 does it mean it will not trigger being at home within 50 km of home?

[@BeardedTinker]

Tolerance 50 is used to ignore any deviations in GPS that are 50 meters or less.

[@d00de83]

@@BeardedTinker ok thanks so the line in KM is for other settings and tolerance automatically resolved to meters if I understand correctly?

[@d00de83]

@@BeardedTinker #Proximity Integration proximity: home: devices: - device_tracker.keys - person.Frederic_xxxx tolerance: 50 unit_of_measurement: km

[@BeardedTinker]

Yes, it should convert everything else (distance) to km in this case.

[@d00de83]

Thanks for the help you explain things very well great work!

[@danny0303]

Tak!

[@BeardedTinker]

Thank you Danny 😀 Very very much 😍

[@catcam]

Many thanks ... and believe or not i have HRT zone too :)))

[@BeardedTinker]

At least it's easy to setup as zone - very large area if you include parking too :) Hope you'll have fun with proximity.

[@ВалерийТер-ш2к]

But how to force to give the location from the iPhone to HA? The location is not given in the background, you need to run the application.

[@BeardedTinker]

:) Run Android :) But yes, you are right. HA iOS app has problem due to iOS restrictions. Even if you allow it to run in the background, it will clear this at some point. We have 1 iOS and 3 Android phones. And the problem is iOS. Current workaround for me is to send notification to my daughter when her Apple phone stops updating location.

[@Djeloan]

@@BeardedTinker Sending the notification wakes the HA app?

[@BeardedTinker]

@@Djeloan on phone? Not necessarily. I've been testing it, and also trying to initiate location update from HA to phone, but no luck in long run.

[@adifoto6362]

Thanks for the video, it looks interesting.

[@BeardedTinker]

It has some issues, but overall it works nicely. Thanks for watching Adi!

[@swimmerboy]

It's just me or 15m window is too much time and 1m window is too little time? I really would like to have custom time for update sensors, something like every 5m even 10m

[@BeardedTinker]

Are you talking about Phone location updates? Not sure what you are referring to? But for location tracking in App, it should update state if there is big enough change in location when it happens. 15 minutes is used to update/verify state when not moving.

[@swimmerboy]

@@BeardedTinker Android companion app - sensor update frequency. Default is 15m. Can change to every minute but it will drain. I need a more frequent update. Somethings like every 5m or 10m.

[@ronm6585]

Thank you.

[@BeardedTinker]

Thank you Ron!!!

[@aldoquispel4699]

Bedankt

[@BeardedTinker]

Thank you Aldo!!!

[@aldoquispel4699]

@@BeardedTinker most welcome. Love your videos and learned a lot from them. This one I didn’t even know HA had. Recently having added similar automations using node-red when someone leaves a zone assuming where they are going based on time & habbits. This adds way more stability and less assumptions. Also just noticed KZbin added a comment in Dutch originally 🤭

[@BeardedTinker]

Glad to hear this! :) BTW Proximity can be a bit tricky - we just had long discussion on Discord about it - for example - for home zone - it's great for heating/cooling, but not for individual home members notification as it would only trigger for first one. You would need to create separate home zone proximity sensor for each family member. For other (such as work, school, shopping) it's working great - as it usually tracks one device/person. I was banging my head on this for some time as I would not receive notification if someone was arriving in home zone, but I was already in it and it didn't registered anyone else. Also, one other thing - if person is traveling from work to home and school is in the way, you will also receive notification for that :) So you do have to play a bit with it.

[@aldoquispel4699]

@@BeardedTinker This also crossed my mind thinking about notifications. The use-cases you described for turning heating on when traveling back home may be more viable.

[@HATipsByLarry]

According to the home assistant documentation the tolerance is in meters, so you don't have to change the unit_of_measurement for that. Tolerance is always in meters if i'm reading it correctly. quoting here tolerance integer (Optional) The tolerance used to calculate the direction of travel in meters (m) to filter out small GPS coordinate changes.

[@BeardedTinker]

That's right, I also mentioned it in a video - to eliminate possible drift when in zone. But I did change unit_of_measurement because it made no sense for me to have it in km when most distant zone was 3 km :) That's why I changed it to meters. EDIT - and forgot to confirm - yes - it's in meters. Although if someone is tracking distance in miles, why can't they change this to feet for example?

[@HATipsByLarry]

@@BeardedTinker thanks for the clarification 😀

[@TismoGaming]

@@BeardedTinker Is this why this automation is not triggering for me? I have mine in miles. Should I change it to meters instead?

[@BeardedTinker]

@@TismoGaming default is meters. If you specify in the sensor: unit_of_measurement: mi It should work in miles. Or, you can use default but calculate than numbers in meters.

[@TismoGaming]

@@BeardedTinker I am trying to use this integration to let my family know I am on my way. I am using your automation. it never ever triggers though alias: Arriving home description: Notify if anyone is getting close to home trigger: - platform: numeric_state entity_id: proximity.home below: 1 condition: - condition: template value_template: "'{{ states.proximity.home.attributes.dir_of_travel == \"towards\" }}'" action: - service: notify.person data: message: >- Looks like '{{ states.proximity.home.attributes.nearest }}' is arriving home title: 🏠 Arriving Home! mode: single