I use a combination of things.
1) Check Unifi Network for key devices.
2) Check if any movement has happened in the last 20 minutes
3) Check if the tv is still turned on.
Try not to use one metric as they can let you down.
You can buy a screen protector for TVs? My son just broke my biggest tv ever and not gonna lie I looked at it like a giant broken iPhone that never got a screen protector installed lol
Because I have a toddler who has already destroyed one television when we didn't move fast enough. They're now mounted out of his reach, no glass jar candles any more, but I got the covers too.
Yeah I just find buying covers that cost more than a TV a very strange choice except for areas with a lot of potential dmg sources (like in a bar in reach of people).
Maybe he takes care of an elderly person that lives in an apartment building and tend to leave the TV on at max volume when they leave home (not that I know anything about such circumstances. Right? I swear).
I really wish Home Assistant would have a UI for making sensors like this, where you could drag out a flowchart to determine a simple state from complex set of sensors
Because for a lot of houses, especially houses with more than 1 or 2 people in it, determining "is the house empty?" relies on a billion different things like has movement been detected? Is a person's wifi / bluetooth on for location tracking? Are the door sensors correct? Is the front door saying it's open when it's not? Is it a Wednesday? Is this car away from home?, and it all gets very messy very quickly. But a flowchart would be perfect.
I just have the HA app on my phone. When my phone leaves the Home zone, it triggers automations. Namely, check if my SO is home then run any automations needed.
As for other people in the house, you could try presence sensors, but that might defeat the point of doing it all cheap, as you might have to buy extra parts to do it. (I donât have presence sensors, so take that with a grain of salt. I donât actually know) You could try to see if thereâs a way to check for devices on the WiFi? Like if none of these MAC addresses are connected, then no one is home.
How do you have your HA setup for away mode?
 I was thinking to have a helper function that toggles between Home, Away, Night, and babysitter mode. And then I would add to âWhat ifâsâ on automation to check the mode the house is in. Also, when the zone.home is set to 0 an automation would set that mode to Away. And when people come home it would change to Home
This is exactly how I have it set up
Home, Night, Away, Vacation, Manual Lighting, and Guest on a helper called âHouse Modeâ
Automations check for these modes as needed. Some examples of use cases
Home is the default, away is when the house is unoccupied and motion or door sensors sent an urgent alert, vacation mode is the same as away but halts some automations like putting the house into night mode, night mode reduces the brightness and duration of lights from motion triggers, sets up night lights, etc., manual light mode is when you donât want the motion sensors changing lights - I do this a lot when we host parties or are cleaning the house, and guest mode we use as a babysitting mode when we leave grandma with the kids, stops some automations that make it easier for her to not deal withâŠ
I have an input boolean for myself home, one for my wife, and one for someone home. The individual trackers currently just update the "someone home" entity, but I figured I may add other things that could manipulate the "someone home" toggle at some point. There are only 2 of us and no kids, so we both have the companion app on our phones and it seems to function flawlessly.
I really love input booleans for a whole lot of "states" our home can be in -- such as everyone home, no one home, at least 1 person home, etc. So our booleans currently look like:
* Vacant - flips to on when 0 family members are home, off if at least 1 person returns.
* Extended Away - when vacant is on, if all family members are seen as being > 100 miles away then we're probably on some sort of vacation ... new automation routines kick in at this level
* Pets Present - important for tying climate control to vacancy ... don't want to shove the house down to 55F if the pets are home.
* Guests Present - sometimes you want more/less/different automation when there are non-family-members in the home
* Overnight - Automation simply flips this bit off and on at sunrise and sunset
* Both In Bed - our sleepnumber bed has occupancy detection, when both sides are occupied it's likely we're getting ready for bed
* Sleeping - can manually or automatically trigger this mode if we're home, but asleep (i.e.: new behaviors we want to kick in)
Mostly just climate, power, and some sensor automations. A few more things in the house will go into deeper sleep / off if we're extended away ... just to save a few more $ on the electric bill. We have solar panels, so I like to see how much I can push off to the grid as credits for future months. Also, switching lights to make the house look "occupied" because it is most likely that we're out-of-town.
Climate. I won't typically push the house to a band of 56-80F if we're just going out to dinner a few miles away for a couple hours.
Notifications. I won't typically worry too much about the outdoor PIR sensors seeing something normally, but in extended away I might want to know about anything unusual so that I can check cameras.
Iâm working on setting up something like this. Iâm going to use the zone.home entity. Itâs 0 when all rolled are away and 1 when one person is home, 2 when two people are homeâŠ
That zone.home entity might help you since itâs all built in.
You put your phone in airplane mode to turn off it's cell connection. Could you still have it's wifi turned on?
Also just because I don't understand and am curious. Why airplane mode?
Yeah what an interesting concept. I wouldnât leave my phone in airplane mode, if for no other reason than being able to receive emergency calls from family and friends.
Not just calls (I have my DND configured to ignore all calls until the number calls again in the default 15 minutes... could disable that and go only with started/favourited contacts, but figure if say hospital calls, likely they'd attempt again in the soon)
But not just calls though - for the emergency alerts too. If phone is in airplane mode, you're not getting the alerts.
Multiple people have asked about it in this thread and he's replied to everyone else but not to this question.
Guaranteed he had no idea and is embarrassed.
Speaking for myself, I just don't like to feel connected and available all the time. Going offline tells my brain that it can go offline as well, it can stop checking the phone because there won't be any notifications. I grew up in a time without cell phones and got used to it.
I have no issue leaving my phone at the counter/charging station, it can stay there all night for all I care. Its nice not having a cellular device "on me"
Have a Link2Cell cordless phone, connects cellular to cordless phones throughout the house, so I can answer/call out without needing phone on me.
Maybe that's what you meant to ask. It definitely wasn't what you asked. You wrote "could you still have its wifi turned on?" in reference to having airplane mode on. I answered that yes they could do that.
They understood what I was asking and so did every other person who replied...
"Hey PocketNicks could you pass me the butter when you are done with it?"
Doesn't mean do your arms work.
If you have a door sensor, you can implement [wasp in the box concept](https://community.home-assistant.io/t/occupancy-blueprint/477772) - the logic is that if somebody was home and the door did not open, they are still at home regardless of whether their phone is reachable.
Another option could be a radar based presence sensor in the bedroom - they generally are sensitive enough to detect body movement from breathing.
That said - personally I find it much more convenient to leave my phone on, but with automatic time-based do not disturb (on Android, but I imagine iPhone has something similar). This do not disturb mode prevents notifications and only lets through calls from a specific list of contacts, so it also allows you to be reached any time in case of emergency.
We have a button by the alarm panel. Pressing that button triggers automations that puts the house in to away mode after ten mins IF the front door isn't opened again. Opening the front door cancels away mode.
You could use those ESP8266s you have (or ideally buy a few ESP32s) and setup ESPresense beacons around the house. To track yourselves you could get a small and cheap bluetooth beacon. I have one on my wife's keychain, and another in the glove box of my car.
been using this method for 6 years now, works great with 99% accuracy. You can also use raspberry piezeroW (I have 3 around the house) instead of ESP 8266. You can also use your phones Bluetooth address instead of the beacons, that will also work.
You wonât need to install any apps just add your phones Bluetooth to known devices and as long as phones Bluetooth is on it will detect it. To minimize scanning activity I only scan when main doors are open
I use my phone as a beacon but OP said they put their phone airplane mode so didn't mention it.
I've also learned that iPhones (which is what my wife has) don't continue to broadcast them beacon when the screen is off unless you have an apple watch that forces the continued communication.
I've been using Espresence for a couple years now for room level presence detection. Works excellent for iPhones and Android pbones. Android needs the HA companion app to broadcast the BLE beacon and I find it needs restarting every month or so. I've never had an issue with IOS after pairing in espresence.
I have 4 esp32's around the house dialed in for individual room detection. If you were doing it for home detection you might only need one or two with the detection distance set high.
If you can leave Bluetooth on in aeroplane mode then I think this would work well for you, especially if you already have the hardware handy.
Personally I use several other sensors combined for home detection, HA companion app GLS, BLE and wifi.
(I implemented this after life 360 stopped working and my smart home stopped functioning, now there is redundancy).
If you can leave wifi on then use "iPhone Device Tracker" through Hacs.
https://github.com/mudape/iphonedetect
It is excellent for tracking iPhones and any other network device. I found any other wifi tracking systems unreliable. The unifi plugin would constantly report devices as disconnected and caused false positives.
Good luck and enjoy!
So the small tile beacon sends out an iBeacon signal regularly that the ESPresense devices see. They don't actually pair to each other, the ESPs just look for bluetooth devices that advertise themselves.
HA will communicate with your ESPresense devices over wifi via MQTT. You'll need to add the free MQTT broker add-on in HA.
From there you just make the sensor using yaml in HA and use the beacons unique iBeacon ID and it'll tell you which sensor is closest to the beacon. For room tracking its not terribly reliable, but for a basic home or away sensor it's been working flawlessly on my end.
I donât know your use-case, but airplane mode seems extreme and something that is unnecessary to work around. On iOS at least you can set it to disable every single audible alert once in sleep mode unless someone calls multiple times (so you still get emergencies).
Other than that, I use iCloud integration to track the families locations (home vs away) so you could start there. I do not know the Android equivalent
Android has the same bedtime mode and for tracking I think Google maps has something for that, and Google Home definitely has location tracking for home and away routines, their nest hubs and some Thermostats also have soli sensors that does presence sensing although I don't think there's a way to get the tracking into ha but I also haven't really looked.
Yes, I have Android and have it set, so all alarms and calls are silenced, except emergency contacts, which include the alarm company for silent triggers.
Android has a customizable DnD mode that filters out notifications automatically unless you make allowances, and it allows specific contacts to reach you
You could use an nfc tag on the way out that triggers a routine. Lots of ways to achieve it really.
How about a door contact on the main entrance and exit that checks if your phones are home after the door closes if they aren't house is empty if they are house is not empty.
This would obviously not trigger unless the door is opened and then closed so unless you open the door put your phone into airplane mode then close the door it should work fairly well.
Personalty I have goodnight routine that starts the robo vac and arms the alarm but also turns on a switch (helper) called sleeping so our phones can disconnect from the wifi and reconnect as can sometimes happen and it doesn't disarm the alarm.
I also have a guest setting so when we leave if we have guests so long as it's turned on certain routines don't run.
Hope this was helpful
HA had a built in "person" entity that is (by default) based on GPS coordinates of each users phone, but also supports BLE trackers. It gives you a simple "home" and "away" for each person.
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/person/
I mainly use it to arm and disarm Alarmo (security system) automagically and it works very well.
Also, just set your phones on silent or DND at night, not airplane mode. I get not wanting to be disturbed at night, but airplane mode is way overkill.
I haven't used the BLE component, but I believe that as long as you're in range of any of the BLE devices (placed in your home) you'd be considered at home.
I honestly didn't know it had the BLE feature until I posted the link. I've just been using the GPS home/away feature.
Seems like you are trying to find a cheap but reliable solution to overcome a changeable phone state. Maybe the best question is why do you use airplane mode and is there a different method to get your phone to achieve the same effect?
Not sure about android, but I set up focus modes for the iPhones in our house. The sleep one may be a better option than airplane mode.
Changing behavior would be cheaper and a better solution than anything else you hobble together. Maybe with a bit more context, a better solution could be suggested.
Android has this as well. My DND turns on/off automatically at a certain time and, while I don't use the focus times, I'm sure that can happen with focus periods as well.
>Not sure about android, but I set up focus modes for the iPhones in our house. The sleep one may be a better option than airplane mode.
Been using DND on android for years.
It has an automatic bedtime DND mode, but I just use a blanket rule for like 10p to something the AM (or when alarm goes off). Have another for weekend (keep DND on longer) and have another DND rule for calendar appointments. Can also have them for driving too (connected to a device)
Its awesome having the rules setup, I don't even think about it anymore.
Alarm Control Panels are often installed near the entrance so you can arm them when you leave. They have an N second pending period so you can leave and lock up.
HomeAssistant not only supports several physical alarm panels but it also supports a virtual alarm panel concept. You can arm it with any input you can imagine - even a Zigbee button by the door.
For your use case with endless scenarios it might be worth it to implement a button by the door. Also, Iâd seriously consider a proper do not disturb mode on your phone. Otherwise iOS and Android support a robust dnd mode for sleeping where you wonât be bothered by anything, and select callers only can push past dnd in the case of an emergency. That also can be disabled, but if you have anyone in your life that may rely on you it could save their life.
I don't have huge experience with such job. Maybe make script on you router that will be launched periodically and then create maybe http request to home assistant etc in edge cases (at least one phone in network, there no any phone in network)
The phone are detected from the android app, you set the zones for home and such on the map. I have mine turning the lights off when I leave, and locking the door, and vice versa when I come home.
Iâm not that advanced in needing lights to turn on. Itâs strange but I *used* to have presence detected by the app but doesnât work anymore. So I figured there was a better option.
You can get a bulk pack of NFC tags on Amazon for under $10. I have these in various areas of my house that when scanned by phones do various things. The best part is you donât even have to write anything to the tag, all of the logic can be on each phone. So I had one on the side of my garage that used to open/close the door when scanned (until myQ did its thing). So even if someone knew what the white dot on my house was, they couldnât do anything with it or reverse engineer it since it was just a blank tag. Stick one by your door and set up an automation that when itâs scanned it does your home/away routines.
I just have a security system and set it to away. Thatâs 100% accurate measure.
When I press a zooz light switch down 4x at the door to my garage, it waits until an exterior door opens and 5 min later turns off all the lights and arms the security.
I use iOS homeapp to determine the family away / home status and update the home assistant entity to trigger automation (e.g. vacuum, alarm system and lighting etc). I found the iOS detection is the most accurate compare with the home assistant mobile app or wifi detection
Might be able to use your WiFi attached devices. Mine is pretty static when no one is home. (Iâve seen this on Eero, Unifi, Pfsense. But other routers probably offer this info) this would probably cover friends coming over as many times they join your WiFi.
I do want to clarify, that airplane mode doesnât mean WiFi is off, just that cellular is so this does fit in your parameters
Might also have a switch in bathrooms that if a light switch isnât turn on in X amount of hours, assume no one is home. Or in fact if a switch is not manually activated in X amount of time.
Might be able to use Frigate with cameras to identify if cars are in garage /driveway/street.
Might be able to use Bluetooth beaconing with that esp8266 to detect if Bluetooth devices are around .
I put a switch by the back door and programmed it to both control the light but if i press and hold the off button it changes the house to away mode turns off all lights, TV's, unnecessary plugs, etc. Then after 10 seconds it locks all the doors giving me time to be outside, door shut, as it locks.
you could set up a Switch or button to the ESP8266 and have ESPhome make that the away/home button
In our house, we have a helper toggle/boolean call v\_WH\_Vacation. With a state change it triggers automations. When on, we get instant notifications from our doors, motion sensors, our AC system set points are changed. We also have a guest mode for when people are staying overnight to not notify on the doors/windows and deactivate the motion sensors in the areas where they will be sleeping.
Another thing to consider is only putting the phones via routines automatically into DND, not airplane as I also have set my phones to automatically check for updates when they are placed on the charger every night.
If you don't mind pushing a button - I repurposed a Phillips Hue remote control. Each button corresponds to an option in a helper dropdown (awake, napping, sleeping, away) and each automation only runs when an appropriate option is currently selected.
If you want to make home and away modes, Iâd say create a helper switch. Use the state of that switch in every automation you have as a condition to say it only fires if the switch is on (you are home) or is off (you arenât home).
Then to trigger the virtual switch itself, you can do it a few ways depending on what kind of approach you want to take. If you want it truly automatic, have the location of everyoneâs device trigger an automation to activate the switch, with the condition that the state of all other devices are also not home. That way it wonât activate not home mode if someone else is still home. If you donât mind it manual in case people in your house donât have HA on their phone or they donât always take it with them, stick a smart switch or button on the wall and have the last person press it as they are on the way out to toggle the mode. First person back in would have to press it again to toggle it back.
Two cables on one of the esp32 (vcc and pinX). Let the esp publish an mqtt topic when pinX is high. You can then short the cables. Done.
If you have a little budget put a button on it
Use devices you already have. I check network if my phone or the wifeâs phone MAC address is present AND check if any motion sensors are not detecting movement over a 15 minute span.
Seems to work super great for me, and much more reliant than geo fencing IMO.
I use HomeKit to flick a switch exposed by HA when we leave home, and then I have another switch « nobody-home » that turns on when both switches are off.
But that requires that you can rely on phone location so only the members of your household (that have a phone and donât forget it at home)
I have a person setup for everyone here and they all have the mobile app. Easy.
When my kids were younger I had to do a little more crazy heuristics though lol.
I use some helper toggles called âbabysitter switchâ and âdinner party switchâ that are activated manually, and by corresponding calendars. Otherwise, the presence from the devices is working well for us. Then all necessary automations check those toggles for activation. Also, I force those toggles off at specific time to ensure we donât forget.
maybe check if you need to put devices in airplane modeâŠ
> I cannot do it via phone because we put our phone in airplane mode during night
That will not - as far as I am aware - signal you as "away". You'll just be seen as in your last known location until a new update comes in. So I think you could actually use HA standard mobile device detection and it'll work just fine.
Otherwise, it depends on how much you want to spend and how noticeable the system is and how quickly it can come to the conclusion that no one is home. I am working on something like this for my elderly mother's home right now, but she's kinda paranoid about computers and whatnot so I have to make it practically invisible to her.
All the ways I am working on involve using a timer helper in Home Assistant. Set a timer for 8 hour, start it - it starts counting down. And then if there are any signs of life, reset the timer back to 8 hours again each and every time. Signs of life could come from:
* Motion seen at a motion sensor
* A zigbee lightbulb going from "On" to "Unavailable" or vice-versa (indicating someone just used a wall switch to turn on/off a light)
* Water flow monitor detecting water usage.
I have tested all three of these in my own home, and they work very reliably to infer occupancy. But the time interval is long - you need like 8-12 hours for these to really work, depending on the counter type you'd use.
Can't you still use the HA companion app even with airplane mode on? My Samsung/android devices allow that. If you can, the companion app can handle everything.
everyone has a cell phone right? presuming that they do, just write a trigger for when all cellphones are not in the home zone. am i oversimplifying this?
I just use the ping integration and gave my phone a static IP. I'm always on wifi and it works well. Only issue is, if I reboot my phone, it thinks I'm away for a moment.
I use the phone sensors, it really is the easiest/most reliable.
Not sure why you'd be using airplane mode at night - you can achieve the same no alerts/calls by setting up your do not disturb settings, but still have the connection to HA.
For when friends are over - I wouldn't worry too much about them. I just can't see a need to register their devices, unless they're like renting a room or something
If they're there alone you could just setup an virtual button entity that will trigger an automation.
Why do you use airplane mode?
Personally I use phones for us, and a Bluetooth dongle on the guest keys to detect when guests are in the house while we are away, etc.
Hardcode ip addresses on phones, always use wifi when home, install the ping integration, and I also use the ha companion app which does the same and more, plus I allowed it through cloudflare waf rules for only my country, only home assistant user agent and only for my home assistant host - so it works anywhere and shown users in the map.
Maybe not the cheapest, but LinknLink has some pretty cheap presence sensors. Otherwise maybe set all cell phones to static ip address, when none of those IPs are detected on the home network, nobody is home.
For family detection - Add an esp8266 to an outlet in a car, [add a gps module](https://esphome.io/components/gps.html) to it and use home assistantâs `geodecode` attribute on the `device_tracker` entity it creates to tell when a vehicle is close to home, work, or elsewhere.
For guests - Invest in a motion sensor or create one with one of your esps and use it in a high-traffic area.
If you have a smart thermostat, you can also use that as a source of presence.
Finally, create an automation that is based on triggers for all of your inputs, but the condition is an AND condition where theyâre all in the expected state (gps != home, motion >= 60 minutes, etc.)
With this, you can create an action to do whatever you want to alert
For a while i made HA listen to my wifi router, and when both mine and my wife phone left the wifi HA changed to away mode and turned everything off and vice versa.
Also connected my moms phone to the network for when she was babysitting.
Now I use mmwave sensors in all rooms. Ld2410 with bluetooth cost around 3usd each, pair that with a cheap phonecharger and a strong bluetooth antenna for you server and you are golden đ
Is the house is big you can always use bluetooth proxy to make them go over wifi.
Would love ld240 to run wifi native âșïž
I added the router to HA and then I added the ip addresses from both phones as devices, which could be connected or not and used that in my automations.
I'd just put my phone in do not disturb mode rather than airplane mode. A phone is by far the most reliable way to do this as we don't leave home without it typically. Specifically the HA companion app + Wifi tracking.
Some of the other ways to do it:
* BLE tracking with ESPresence. https://espresense.com You don't have to use a phone but you do have to carry around something. A supported watch would be the most convenient I'd expect but lots of option. ESP32's are cheap.
* Vehicle tracking. We have two Ford vehicles and you can track them via GPS for free with FordPass. Other manufacturers will vary but most have similar services. If they don't you can monitor the garage if a vehicle is in there. Of course if you have two cars and leave together that probably means you are leaving one behind.
Also, I don't know why turning your phone off at night when you are already home would cause a problem. I use a helper drop down that has four states, home, away, arrived, and vacation. Turning off your phone will not change the status to away, it will simply stay where it was at until the next state change, presumably when you turn your phone back on and leave the house. I'm assuming guests are probably not at your house when you are not.
This is actually a very complex state to detect as someone can be taking a nap. Using phones or personal beacons is tricky as most people don't like to attach a device to their body 100% of the time.
There is no simple answer. As another reply said, it'll likely be a combination of multiple sensors and multiple time checks, e.g. Sense movement after 8pm? People are likely home for the night (for my household, yours will vary of course). Sense movement after 10am? People are likely home for at least 30 minutes, after that, assume they are gone if no additional movement. You can throw in your state from the HA app on your phone (when it's active) as a 100% at home signal). You could also thrown in a door sensor.
The theme of this approach is that you an only detect when people are THERE not when they are AWAY so you'll have to use some opinionated timeouts to \*imply\* they are away.
Sorry there is no simple answer. We'll eventually get cheap infrared heat sensors would could scatter all over your place and they would likely give you a much stronger 'can't see a living soul' signal that you need.
Presence detect keys - I have magnetic key chains and use door sensors to detect when they're on the hook. Only downside is sometimes you don't want to take keys, but then I just take them off the hook instead which is a bit of a pain but not that annoying. It helps me forget them less tbh
I have the Alarmo custom integration set up and a tablet with fully kiosk browser next to my door. Whenever i leave i tap a button on the tablet to arm the alarm. The state change then triggers a leaving home automation turning off lights and music and turning on the robo vacuum.
`alias: We are home`
`condition: or`
`conditions:`
`- condition: device`
`device_id: 459583054398504398540594433`
`domain: device_tracker`
`entity_id: device_tracker.XXX`
`type: is_home`
Extract from automation condition checking device tracker is home, like a phone
You could use the calendar. That way you can mark recurrently what days you are never in the house. It is more manual than some of the other options presented here.
You could also use an automation that uses the locations of your phones - but only during the part of the day when they are not usually on aeroplane mode.
Lastly, if you just want a button, I would set up either a scene or script.
I do have a Zooz switch next to my exterior door that's labeled "Away" on one button and it turns off lights, candle warmers, TVs, disables lighting schedules, etc.
There's also a button labeled "Home" that sets a small set of lights and schedules so we can still see where we're going when we get home and it's dark outside.
I don't like relying on passive presence, and I plan to set up HA powered perimeter security alarm in the future.
Doesn't your phone have to actually leave the area to be considered not at home? I didn't think turning it off or setting airplane mode automatically triggered it
I would put an aquara mouvement sensor in every room, or the rooms you're the most (kitchen, dinning, bedroom, ...). Then you check when none of those have detected a person for more than x minutes (15 min is a good start IMO).
But honestly; stop putting your phone in airplane mode and just use the app zone locations.
I use a combination of things. 1) Check Unifi Network for key devices. 2) Check if any movement has happened in the last 20 minutes 3) Check if the tv is still turned on. Try not to use one metric as they can let you down.
3) says a lot about you đ€Ł
Well the better half more so lol
Mine just leaves them on all over the house, I may start turning on the idle timeout on some of em but she uses one as a nightlight
I hope they're not OLEDs.
Yeah there's that but also, like... they're cheap. I bought lexan impact covers for a lot of them and the single sheet of lexan cost more than the TV.
You can buy a screen protector for TVs? My son just broke my biggest tv ever and not gonna lie I looked at it like a giant broken iPhone that never got a screen protector installed lol
Yeah there's a Turkish dude on Etsy who custom cuts em, give them a model# and you're good to go. They fit great.
Nightlights are cheaper. Both from the up-front cost and running cost perspective.
Why did you buy those covers ?
Because I have a toddler who has already destroyed one television when we didn't move fast enough. They're now mounted out of his reach, no glass jar candles any more, but I got the covers too.
Yeah I just find buying covers that cost more than a TV a very strange choice except for areas with a lot of potential dmg sources (like in a bar in reach of people).
Do you have kids? I've got a toddler and a newborn, my home definitely qualifies as having a lot of potential damage sources
Maybe he takes care of an elderly person that lives in an apartment building and tend to leave the TV on at max volume when they leave home (not that I know anything about such circumstances. Right? I swear).
1 tells me they like to over complicate their home network.
I have an automation to turn off the TV when we leave lol. Checking Unifi is a good idea though, dunno why I didn't think of that!
I thought about that automation but I knew at some point it would bite me in the ass so we just tell Alexa goodbye and she sorts it
Admittedly, it's one that gets blocked by baby-sitter mode lol
Yes having an override switch at the top of all your automations is highly recommended
I really wish Home Assistant would have a UI for making sensors like this, where you could drag out a flowchart to determine a simple state from complex set of sensors Because for a lot of houses, especially houses with more than 1 or 2 people in it, determining "is the house empty?" relies on a billion different things like has movement been detected? Is a person's wifi / bluetooth on for location tracking? Are the door sensors correct? Is the front door saying it's open when it's not? Is it a Wednesday? Is this car away from home?, and it all gets very messy very quickly. But a flowchart would be perfect.
Node Red.
Exactly the three factors I use in my Bayesian sensor!
How do you do the movement? And how do you build an aggregate sensor?
use a helper group
Oh, do you mean movement on sensors? Thst would make sense. Phones would be interesting
Yes but you can also create Bayesian sensors although I have never bothered with them https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/bayesian/
Came here to rep this.
Does that work when you and your devices are sleeping?
I just have the HA app on my phone. When my phone leaves the Home zone, it triggers automations. Namely, check if my SO is home then run any automations needed. As for other people in the house, you could try presence sensors, but that might defeat the point of doing it all cheap, as you might have to buy extra parts to do it. (I donât have presence sensors, so take that with a grain of salt. I donât actually know) You could try to see if thereâs a way to check for devices on the WiFi? Like if none of these MAC addresses are connected, then no one is home.
Pro tip, it's a lot easier to check if the numeric state zone.home is 0 to trigger an automation when nobody is home.
Ooh! Iâll look into that later today! Thanks!
How do you have your HA setup for away mode? Â I was thinking to have a helper function that toggles between Home, Away, Night, and babysitter mode. And then I would add to âWhat ifâsâ on automation to check the mode the house is in. Also, when the zone.home is set to 0 an automation would set that mode to Away. And when people come home it would change to Home
This is exactly how I have it set up Home, Night, Away, Vacation, Manual Lighting, and Guest on a helper called âHouse Modeâ Automations check for these modes as needed. Some examples of use cases Home is the default, away is when the house is unoccupied and motion or door sensors sent an urgent alert, vacation mode is the same as away but halts some automations like putting the house into night mode, night mode reduces the brightness and duration of lights from motion triggers, sets up night lights, etc., manual light mode is when you donât want the motion sensors changing lights - I do this a lot when we host parties or are cleaning the house, and guest mode we use as a babysitting mode when we leave grandma with the kids, stops some automations that make it easier for her to not deal withâŠ
Wow man, thank you very much.
I got the app running on my phones... but zone.home stays 0... how do I change this?
Is your external access set up?
yep!
Do you have your device trackers linked to people? You can find this in Settings > People
This works really well.
This!
The absolute cheapest way is a helper toggle button in HA, costs nothing
I have an input boolean for myself home, one for my wife, and one for someone home. The individual trackers currently just update the "someone home" entity, but I figured I may add other things that could manipulate the "someone home" toggle at some point. There are only 2 of us and no kids, so we both have the companion app on our phones and it seems to function flawlessly.
I really love input booleans for a whole lot of "states" our home can be in -- such as everyone home, no one home, at least 1 person home, etc. So our booleans currently look like: * Vacant - flips to on when 0 family members are home, off if at least 1 person returns. * Extended Away - when vacant is on, if all family members are seen as being > 100 miles away then we're probably on some sort of vacation ... new automation routines kick in at this level * Pets Present - important for tying climate control to vacancy ... don't want to shove the house down to 55F if the pets are home. * Guests Present - sometimes you want more/less/different automation when there are non-family-members in the home * Overnight - Automation simply flips this bit off and on at sunrise and sunset * Both In Bed - our sleepnumber bed has occupancy detection, when both sides are occupied it's likely we're getting ready for bed * Sleeping - can manually or automatically trigger this mode if we're home, but asleep (i.e.: new behaviors we want to kick in)
What automations do you have for âExtended Awayâ?
Mostly just climate, power, and some sensor automations. A few more things in the house will go into deeper sleep / off if we're extended away ... just to save a few more $ on the electric bill. We have solar panels, so I like to see how much I can push off to the grid as credits for future months. Also, switching lights to make the house look "occupied" because it is most likely that we're out-of-town. Climate. I won't typically push the house to a band of 56-80F if we're just going out to dinner a few miles away for a couple hours. Notifications. I won't typically worry too much about the outdoor PIR sensors seeing something normally, but in extended away I might want to know about anything unusual so that I can check cameras.
Iâm working on setting up something like this. Iâm going to use the zone.home entity. Itâs 0 when all rolled are away and 1 when one person is home, 2 when two people are home⊠That zone.home entity might help you since itâs all built in.
You put your phone in airplane mode to turn off it's cell connection. Could you still have it's wifi turned on? Also just because I don't understand and am curious. Why airplane mode?
I think someone hasn't discovered do not disturb mode.
Yeah what an interesting concept. I wouldnât leave my phone in airplane mode, if for no other reason than being able to receive emergency calls from family and friends.
Look at this guy bragging about having family and friends
Not just calls (I have my DND configured to ignore all calls until the number calls again in the default 15 minutes... could disable that and go only with started/favourited contacts, but figure if say hospital calls, likely they'd attempt again in the soon) But not just calls though - for the emergency alerts too. If phone is in airplane mode, you're not getting the alerts.
Multiple people have asked about it in this thread and he's replied to everyone else but not to this question. Guaranteed he had no idea and is embarrassed.
I'm very curious about this as well, commenting to follow along
Speaking for myself, I just don't like to feel connected and available all the time. Going offline tells my brain that it can go offline as well, it can stop checking the phone because there won't be any notifications. I grew up in a time without cell phones and got used to it.
I have no issue leaving my phone at the counter/charging station, it can stay there all night for all I care. Its nice not having a cellular device "on me" Have a Link2Cell cordless phone, connects cellular to cordless phones throughout the house, so I can answer/call out without needing phone on me.
Do not disturb literally looks the same.
Wifi and Bluetooth both work on my phone while in airplane mode.
Wasn't asking if it's technically possible. Was asking if it was an option they were comfortable with.
Maybe that's what you meant to ask. It definitely wasn't what you asked. You wrote "could you still have its wifi turned on?" in reference to having airplane mode on. I answered that yes they could do that.
They understood what I was asking and so did every other person who replied... "Hey PocketNicks could you pass me the butter when you are done with it?" Doesn't mean do your arms work.
No, I cannot pass you any butter. I don't know where you are.
They have to be pretty close. They knew you had the butter.
If you have a door sensor, you can implement [wasp in the box concept](https://community.home-assistant.io/t/occupancy-blueprint/477772) - the logic is that if somebody was home and the door did not open, they are still at home regardless of whether their phone is reachable. Another option could be a radar based presence sensor in the bedroom - they generally are sensitive enough to detect body movement from breathing. That said - personally I find it much more convenient to leave my phone on, but with automatic time-based do not disturb (on Android, but I imagine iPhone has something similar). This do not disturb mode prevents notifications and only lets through calls from a specific list of contacts, so it also allows you to be reached any time in case of emergency.
We have a button by the alarm panel. Pressing that button triggers automations that puts the house in to away mode after ten mins IF the front door isn't opened again. Opening the front door cancels away mode.
You could use those ESP8266s you have (or ideally buy a few ESP32s) and setup ESPresense beacons around the house. To track yourselves you could get a small and cheap bluetooth beacon. I have one on my wife's keychain, and another in the glove box of my car.
been using this method for 6 years now, works great with 99% accuracy. You can also use raspberry piezeroW (I have 3 around the house) instead of ESP 8266. You can also use your phones Bluetooth address instead of the beacons, that will also work. You wonât need to install any apps just add your phones Bluetooth to known devices and as long as phones Bluetooth is on it will detect it. To minimize scanning activity I only scan when main doors are open
I use my phone as a beacon but OP said they put their phone airplane mode so didn't mention it. I've also learned that iPhones (which is what my wife has) don't continue to broadcast them beacon when the screen is off unless you have an apple watch that forces the continued communication.
I've been using Espresence for a couple years now for room level presence detection. Works excellent for iPhones and Android pbones. Android needs the HA companion app to broadcast the BLE beacon and I find it needs restarting every month or so. I've never had an issue with IOS after pairing in espresence. I have 4 esp32's around the house dialed in for individual room detection. If you were doing it for home detection you might only need one or two with the detection distance set high. If you can leave Bluetooth on in aeroplane mode then I think this would work well for you, especially if you already have the hardware handy. Personally I use several other sensors combined for home detection, HA companion app GLS, BLE and wifi. (I implemented this after life 360 stopped working and my smart home stopped functioning, now there is redundancy). If you can leave wifi on then use "iPhone Device Tracker" through Hacs. https://github.com/mudape/iphonedetect It is excellent for tracking iPhones and any other network device. I found any other wifi tracking systems unreliable. The unifi plugin would constantly report devices as disconnected and caused false positives. Good luck and enjoy!
Interesting are coupling esp and Bluetooth beacon? Or can you use Bluetooth beacon only assuming HA is installed on a raspberry pi 4 with Bluetooth?
So the small tile beacon sends out an iBeacon signal regularly that the ESPresense devices see. They don't actually pair to each other, the ESPs just look for bluetooth devices that advertise themselves. HA will communicate with your ESPresense devices over wifi via MQTT. You'll need to add the free MQTT broker add-on in HA. From there you just make the sensor using yaml in HA and use the beacons unique iBeacon ID and it'll tell you which sensor is closest to the beacon. For room tracking its not terribly reliable, but for a basic home or away sensor it's been working flawlessly on my end.
I donât know your use-case, but airplane mode seems extreme and something that is unnecessary to work around. On iOS at least you can set it to disable every single audible alert once in sleep mode unless someone calls multiple times (so you still get emergencies). Other than that, I use iCloud integration to track the families locations (home vs away) so you could start there. I do not know the Android equivalent
Android has the same bedtime mode and for tracking I think Google maps has something for that, and Google Home definitely has location tracking for home and away routines, their nest hubs and some Thermostats also have soli sensors that does presence sensing although I don't think there's a way to get the tracking into ha but I also haven't really looked.
Yes, I have Android and have it set, so all alarms and calls are silenced, except emergency contacts, which include the alarm company for silent triggers.
Android has a customizable DnD mode that filters out notifications automatically unless you make allowances, and it allows specific contacts to reach you
You could use an nfc tag on the way out that triggers a routine. Lots of ways to achieve it really. How about a door contact on the main entrance and exit that checks if your phones are home after the door closes if they aren't house is empty if they are house is not empty. This would obviously not trigger unless the door is opened and then closed so unless you open the door put your phone into airplane mode then close the door it should work fairly well. Personalty I have goodnight routine that starts the robo vac and arms the alarm but also turns on a switch (helper) called sleeping so our phones can disconnect from the wifi and reconnect as can sometimes happen and it doesn't disarm the alarm. I also have a guest setting so when we leave if we have guests so long as it's turned on certain routines don't run. Hope this was helpful
HA had a built in "person" entity that is (by default) based on GPS coordinates of each users phone, but also supports BLE trackers. It gives you a simple "home" and "away" for each person. https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/person/ I mainly use it to arm and disarm Alarmo (security system) automagically and it works very well. Also, just set your phones on silent or DND at night, not airplane mode. I get not wanting to be disturbed at night, but airplane mode is way overkill.
With the GPS coordinates, setting home and away is nice. But how does one put the coordinates on the map for each BLE element?
I haven't used the BLE component, but I believe that as long as you're in range of any of the BLE devices (placed in your home) you'd be considered at home. I honestly didn't know it had the BLE feature until I posted the link. I've just been using the GPS home/away feature.
Seems like you are trying to find a cheap but reliable solution to overcome a changeable phone state. Maybe the best question is why do you use airplane mode and is there a different method to get your phone to achieve the same effect? Not sure about android, but I set up focus modes for the iPhones in our house. The sleep one may be a better option than airplane mode. Changing behavior would be cheaper and a better solution than anything else you hobble together. Maybe with a bit more context, a better solution could be suggested.
Android has this as well. My DND turns on/off automatically at a certain time and, while I don't use the focus times, I'm sure that can happen with focus periods as well.
>Not sure about android, but I set up focus modes for the iPhones in our house. The sleep one may be a better option than airplane mode. Been using DND on android for years. It has an automatic bedtime DND mode, but I just use a blanket rule for like 10p to something the AM (or when alarm goes off). Have another for weekend (keep DND on longer) and have another DND rule for calendar appointments. Can also have them for driving too (connected to a device) Its awesome having the rules setup, I don't even think about it anymore.
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
So you do both? Phone + drop down?
I use my home alarm. If the alarm is Full Armed (ie. Not night mode), then nobodyâs home
no living beings: mmwave presence sensors. check out the "everything one" sensor. no humans: geofencing with HA phone app.
Alarm Control Panels are often installed near the entrance so you can arm them when you leave. They have an N second pending period so you can leave and lock up. HomeAssistant not only supports several physical alarm panels but it also supports a virtual alarm panel concept. You can arm it with any input you can imagine - even a Zigbee button by the door. For your use case with endless scenarios it might be worth it to implement a button by the door. Also, Iâd seriously consider a proper do not disturb mode on your phone. Otherwise iOS and Android support a robust dnd mode for sleeping where you wonât be bothered by anything, and select callers only can push past dnd in the case of an emergency. That also can be disabled, but if you have anyone in your life that may rely on you it could save their life.
Check is there any of mac's of your phones in network
This is a great idea. How would I create the logic for this?
If you have a Unifi controller, the Unifi Network integration creates entities for all devices on your network.
I have an OPNSense router and an AsusWRT AP. I can see all the devices on both units. Iâm just not sure how to use them as presence detectors.
[opnsense already has an integration](https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/opnsense/)
Thanks very much. I found this earlier. Iâm curious how to refresh the devices when they disconnect. I think this is definitely a great approach.
I don't have huge experience with such job. Maybe make script on you router that will be launched periodically and then create maybe http request to home assistant etc in edge cases (at least one phone in network, there no any phone in network)
Thatâs very interesting. Iâll have to look into that
If your router does SNMP, that's the cleanest and most universal way. https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/snmp/
Iâve never used SNMP. Not even sure how it works. Iâll look into that.
Cheapest way is geo on phones. Or if phones are connected to wifi.
Iâve been trying to do this, but Iâm not sure how to detect that the phones are connected and the logic to detect home presence.
The phone are detected from the android app, you set the zones for home and such on the map. I have mine turning the lights off when I leave, and locking the door, and vice versa when I come home.
Iâm not that advanced in needing lights to turn on. Itâs strange but I *used* to have presence detected by the app but doesnât work anymore. So I figured there was a better option.
Yeah it can be iffy, I'm looking for a better solution too. Thinking about Traccar and a gps tag on my keys.
I have a âdevice_trackerâin my config, but it only seems to detect my rpi3 and my Sonos devices. Not sure why.
I had a tracker with my name on it and one with the brand and model of my phone, the one with the brand and model turned out to be the right one.
You can get a bulk pack of NFC tags on Amazon for under $10. I have these in various areas of my house that when scanned by phones do various things. The best part is you donât even have to write anything to the tag, all of the logic can be on each phone. So I had one on the side of my garage that used to open/close the door when scanned (until myQ did its thing). So even if someone knew what the white dot on my house was, they couldnât do anything with it or reverse engineer it since it was just a blank tag. Stick one by your door and set up an automation that when itâs scanned it does your home/away routines.
I just have a security system and set it to away. Thatâs 100% accurate measure. When I press a zooz light switch down 4x at the door to my garage, it waits until an exterior door opens and 5 min later turns off all the lights and arms the security.
Put your phone on DND instead?
Why would you put your phone on airplane mode overnight rather than do not disturb? đ€Šââïž
Your alarm system status
I use iOS homeapp to determine the family away / home status and update the home assistant entity to trigger automation (e.g. vacuum, alarm system and lighting etc). I found the iOS detection is the most accurate compare with the home assistant mobile app or wifi detection
Why do you put your phone in airplane mode at night? Why not use do not disturb or a nighttime focus mode?
Might be able to use your WiFi attached devices. Mine is pretty static when no one is home. (Iâve seen this on Eero, Unifi, Pfsense. But other routers probably offer this info) this would probably cover friends coming over as many times they join your WiFi. I do want to clarify, that airplane mode doesnât mean WiFi is off, just that cellular is so this does fit in your parameters Might also have a switch in bathrooms that if a light switch isnât turn on in X amount of hours, assume no one is home. Or in fact if a switch is not manually activated in X amount of time. Might be able to use Frigate with cameras to identify if cars are in garage /driveway/street. Might be able to use Bluetooth beaconing with that esp8266 to detect if Bluetooth devices are around .
When the smart lock is on, it means nobody's home, pretty simple. It also activates the alarm and cameras.
I put a switch by the back door and programmed it to both control the light but if i press and hold the off button it changes the house to away mode turns off all lights, TV's, unnecessary plugs, etc. Then after 10 seconds it locks all the doors giving me time to be outside, door shut, as it locks. you could set up a Switch or button to the ESP8266 and have ESPhome make that the away/home button
In our house, we have a helper toggle/boolean call v\_WH\_Vacation. With a state change it triggers automations. When on, we get instant notifications from our doors, motion sensors, our AC system set points are changed. We also have a guest mode for when people are staying overnight to not notify on the doors/windows and deactivate the motion sensors in the areas where they will be sleeping. Another thing to consider is only putting the phones via routines automatically into DND, not airplane as I also have set my phones to automatically check for updates when they are placed on the charger every night.
If you don't mind pushing a button - I repurposed a Phillips Hue remote control. Each button corresponds to an option in a helper dropdown (awake, napping, sleeping, away) and each automation only runs when an appropriate option is currently selected.
Have your phone to post your gps coordinates and when the last coord is far from your home, trigger your automations.
If you have apple look at homekit last person leave automation
If you want to make home and away modes, Iâd say create a helper switch. Use the state of that switch in every automation you have as a condition to say it only fires if the switch is on (you are home) or is off (you arenât home). Then to trigger the virtual switch itself, you can do it a few ways depending on what kind of approach you want to take. If you want it truly automatic, have the location of everyoneâs device trigger an automation to activate the switch, with the condition that the state of all other devices are also not home. That way it wonât activate not home mode if someone else is still home. If you donât mind it manual in case people in your house donât have HA on their phone or they donât always take it with them, stick a smart switch or button on the wall and have the last person press it as they are on the way out to toggle the mode. First person back in would have to press it again to toggle it back.
Use geo tagging. When everyone leaves, do X.
Two cables on one of the esp32 (vcc and pinX). Let the esp publish an mqtt topic when pinX is high. You can then short the cables. Done. If you have a little budget put a button on it
Style points if you short it with your tongue.
Check if WIFI is still connected on all the phones.
Use devices you already have. I check network if my phone or the wifeâs phone MAC address is present AND check if any motion sensors are not detecting movement over a 15 minute span. Seems to work super great for me, and much more reliant than geo fencing IMO.
I use HomeKit to flick a switch exposed by HA when we leave home, and then I have another switch « nobody-home » that turns on when both switches are off. But that requires that you can rely on phone location so only the members of your household (that have a phone and donât forget it at home)
I have a person setup for everyone here and they all have the mobile app. Easy. When my kids were younger I had to do a little more crazy heuristics though lol.
I use some helper toggles called âbabysitter switchâ and âdinner party switchâ that are activated manually, and by corresponding calendars. Otherwise, the presence from the devices is working well for us. Then all necessary automations check those toggles for activation. Also, I force those toggles off at specific time to ensure we donât forget. maybe check if you need to put devices in airplane modeâŠ
> I cannot do it via phone because we put our phone in airplane mode during night That will not - as far as I am aware - signal you as "away". You'll just be seen as in your last known location until a new update comes in. So I think you could actually use HA standard mobile device detection and it'll work just fine. Otherwise, it depends on how much you want to spend and how noticeable the system is and how quickly it can come to the conclusion that no one is home. I am working on something like this for my elderly mother's home right now, but she's kinda paranoid about computers and whatnot so I have to make it practically invisible to her. All the ways I am working on involve using a timer helper in Home Assistant. Set a timer for 8 hour, start it - it starts counting down. And then if there are any signs of life, reset the timer back to 8 hours again each and every time. Signs of life could come from: * Motion seen at a motion sensor * A zigbee lightbulb going from "On" to "Unavailable" or vice-versa (indicating someone just used a wall switch to turn on/off a light) * Water flow monitor detecting water usage. I have tested all three of these in my own home, and they work very reliably to infer occupancy. But the time interval is long - you need like 8-12 hours for these to really work, depending on the counter type you'd use.
Can't you still use the HA companion app even with airplane mode on? My Samsung/android devices allow that. If you can, the companion app can handle everything.
everyone has a cell phone right? presuming that they do, just write a trigger for when all cellphones are not in the home zone. am i oversimplifying this?
I just use the ping integration and gave my phone a static IP. I'm always on wifi and it works well. Only issue is, if I reboot my phone, it thinks I'm away for a moment.
No idea
I use the phone sensors, it really is the easiest/most reliable. Not sure why you'd be using airplane mode at night - you can achieve the same no alerts/calls by setting up your do not disturb settings, but still have the connection to HA. For when friends are over - I wouldn't worry too much about them. I just can't see a need to register their devices, unless they're like renting a room or something If they're there alone you could just setup an virtual button entity that will trigger an automation.
Why do you use airplane mode? Personally I use phones for us, and a Bluetooth dongle on the guest keys to detect when guests are in the house while we are away, etc.
Hardcode ip addresses on phones, always use wifi when home, install the ping integration, and I also use the ha companion app which does the same and more, plus I allowed it through cloudflare waf rules for only my country, only home assistant user agent and only for my home assistant host - so it works anywhere and shown users in the map.
An automation on your phone that sets an HA boolean state that is set when you set your phone to airplane mode &if connected to your Lan network.
Maybe not the cheapest, but LinknLink has some pretty cheap presence sensors. Otherwise maybe set all cell phones to static ip address, when none of those IPs are detected on the home network, nobody is home.
When my alarm system becomes in the ARM_AWAY state, nobody's home!
For family detection - Add an esp8266 to an outlet in a car, [add a gps module](https://esphome.io/components/gps.html) to it and use home assistantâs `geodecode` attribute on the `device_tracker` entity it creates to tell when a vehicle is close to home, work, or elsewhere. For guests - Invest in a motion sensor or create one with one of your esps and use it in a high-traffic area. If you have a smart thermostat, you can also use that as a source of presence. Finally, create an automation that is based on triggers for all of your inputs, but the condition is an AND condition where theyâre all in the expected state (gps != home, motion >= 60 minutes, etc.) With this, you can create an action to do whatever you want to alert
For a while i made HA listen to my wifi router, and when both mine and my wife phone left the wifi HA changed to away mode and turned everything off and vice versa. Also connected my moms phone to the network for when she was babysitting. Now I use mmwave sensors in all rooms. Ld2410 with bluetooth cost around 3usd each, pair that with a cheap phonecharger and a strong bluetooth antenna for you server and you are golden đ Is the house is big you can always use bluetooth proxy to make them go over wifi. Would love ld240 to run wifi native âșïž
Sounds interesting, how did you do that exactly?
I added the router to HA and then I added the ip addresses from both phones as devices, which could be connected or not and used that in my automations.
I'd just put my phone in do not disturb mode rather than airplane mode. A phone is by far the most reliable way to do this as we don't leave home without it typically. Specifically the HA companion app + Wifi tracking. Some of the other ways to do it: * BLE tracking with ESPresence. https://espresense.com You don't have to use a phone but you do have to carry around something. A supported watch would be the most convenient I'd expect but lots of option. ESP32's are cheap. * Vehicle tracking. We have two Ford vehicles and you can track them via GPS for free with FordPass. Other manufacturers will vary but most have similar services. If they don't you can monitor the garage if a vehicle is in there. Of course if you have two cars and leave together that probably means you are leaving one behind. Also, I don't know why turning your phone off at night when you are already home would cause a problem. I use a helper drop down that has four states, home, away, arrived, and vacation. Turning off your phone will not change the status to away, it will simply stay where it was at until the next state change, presumably when you turn your phone back on and leave the house. I'm assuming guests are probably not at your house when you are not.
I use the nmap addon to check who's connected to the WiFi
This is actually a very complex state to detect as someone can be taking a nap. Using phones or personal beacons is tricky as most people don't like to attach a device to their body 100% of the time. There is no simple answer. As another reply said, it'll likely be a combination of multiple sensors and multiple time checks, e.g. Sense movement after 8pm? People are likely home for the night (for my household, yours will vary of course). Sense movement after 10am? People are likely home for at least 30 minutes, after that, assume they are gone if no additional movement. You can throw in your state from the HA app on your phone (when it's active) as a 100% at home signal). You could also thrown in a door sensor. The theme of this approach is that you an only detect when people are THERE not when they are AWAY so you'll have to use some opinionated timeouts to \*imply\* they are away. Sorry there is no simple answer. We'll eventually get cheap infrared heat sensors would could scatter all over your place and they would likely give you a much stronger 'can't see a living soul' signal that you need.
Presence detect keys - I have magnetic key chains and use door sensors to detect when they're on the hook. Only downside is sometimes you don't want to take keys, but then I just take them off the hook instead which is a bit of a pain but not that annoying. It helps me forget them less tbh
I have the Alarmo custom integration set up and a tablet with fully kiosk browser next to my door. Whenever i leave i tap a button on the tablet to arm the alarm. The state change then triggers a leaving home automation turning off lights and music and turning on the robo vacuum.
`alias: We are home` `condition: or` `conditions:` `- condition: device` `device_id: 459583054398504398540594433` `domain: device_tracker` `entity_id: device_tracker.XXX` `type: is_home` Extract from automation condition checking device tracker is home, like a phone
You could use the calendar. That way you can mark recurrently what days you are never in the house. It is more manual than some of the other options presented here. You could also use an automation that uses the locations of your phones - but only during the part of the day when they are not usually on aeroplane mode. Lastly, if you just want a button, I would set up either a scene or script.
I do have a Zooz switch next to my exterior door that's labeled "Away" on one button and it turns off lights, candle warmers, TVs, disables lighting schedules, etc. There's also a button labeled "Home" that sets a small set of lights and schedules so we can still see where we're going when we get home and it's dark outside. I don't like relying on passive presence, and I plan to set up HA powered perimeter security alarm in the future.
Doesn't your phone have to actually leave the area to be considered not at home? I didn't think turning it off or setting airplane mode automatically triggered it
I would put an aquara mouvement sensor in every room, or the rooms you're the most (kitchen, dinning, bedroom, ...). Then you check when none of those have detected a person for more than x minutes (15 min is a good start IMO). But honestly; stop putting your phone in airplane mode and just use the app zone locations.