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IOS Geofencing capability for SecuritySpy

AndyUKAndyUK
edited June 2017 in SecuritySpy
Hi,

It would be great if in a future version it would be possible to add geofencing/location based capability to the app. So that you could set it to detect when you leave the premises and then arm SecuritySpy, then disarm when you return.


Cheers!

Comments

  • BenBen
    Hi Andy, yes I like this idea and it has been requested a few times, though it isn't easy to implement. I'll see what we can do for a future update.
  • AndyUKAndyUK
    Fantastic thanks Ben
  • SpivSpiv
    edited June 2017
    One thing to consider is to do what Indigo (Home Automation) server does -- it has an option to monitor an email account and parse simple commands in the content of the email.

    It will monitor google or regular IMAP accounts and either mark or delete emails that are processed

    This provides a way to do a lot of automation by setting up a special email account "myserver@blah.com" and sending commands to it.

    Although email is a bit awkward and has a little delay, the advantage of having this is that this provide a universal way to get commands to a server that avoids all the hard issues of dealing with UPnP, routers, port-forwarding, VPN, SSL, etc.

    In my case, I use the Stringify or IFTTT app to send an email when a Geofence is triggered, so I can kludge Geofencing to Indigo and other servers that do not have Gofence support as long as they have an email command processor. (I have Indigo receiving the GeoFence alerts and then scripts in Indigo control SecuritySpy using REST commands to arm/disarm cameras.)

    In a somewhat related issue (adding missing functionality), I use the iOS "Pushover" app (an email-to-Apple Push notification service gateway) to add "push" alerts for apps and services that don't have built-in push messages.

    Just to be clear: I think SecuritySpy should directly have GeoFencing support as it is very useful and common scenario, but if you were to first implement an email command gateway, then at least we all have one "universal" way to do custom integration with SecuritySpy while you work on more specific direct support for features that are harder/take longer to implement.
  • BenBen
    Hi @Spiv thanks for the feedback and suggestions, we'll take a look at this. I definitely think Geofencing would be a good feature to add soon.
  • xmxxmx
    FWIW, I'm sure this has been thought of before, but another approach could be flagging if your iOS device is logged into the local WIFI network that the MacOS SS app is running on.

    If your iOS device leaves the local network, than the system assumes you've left the area and arms (or some other parameter changes) the system. When you re-join the local network, the system changes back to the original state.

    This setup would obviously be complicated if the user logs into their local network via VPN - from a GEOloc that's away - where you might want the system to remain armed. Maybe someone has a detection method to differentiate the two.

    @Ben, do you know of a way for the iOS app and the MacOS app to detect each other on the same network and differentiate VPN access? Maybe there's a way to use Bonjour or Bluetooth somehow?
  • BenBen
    Hi @xmx - yes, detecting the iPhone on the network seems to be a good way to do this. Ideally it would need to be done at device-level rather than app-level, to avoid negatively impacting battery life due to background app activity. It looks like the best solution might be to use the ARP protocol to check for the presence of the iPhone's MAC address on the network. We are currently looking into this.
  • xmxxmx
    Hey @Ben. That's great. MAC address would be a great approach. Glad to hear it's on the radar.

    Another suggestion regarding this feature: Setting a variable in the app to allow for how quickly the system reacts to the change in location. For example, after the system detects your phone has left the network, wait X seconds before arming the system. That way, if you temporarily drop off WIFI reception, the system won't arm immediately (unless you want it to).
  • BenBen
    edited August 2017
    Hi @xmx yes that's a good idea, we'll incorporate some sort of delay setting, as you describe.
  • xmxxmx
    Thanks @Ben. That's great to hear. I'm not sure how many people have expressed an interest in this feature, but I think it would be very helpful for many folks.

    FWIW, from a business perspective for you, this kind of auto-arm/disarm feature set could really help market your product to the growing number of (less technical) people looking to setup home security.
  • brennabrenna
    Ben, any update on Geofencing? It would be noice to reduce that at-home chatter
  • BenBen
    We have been working on this, but it's more complicated than we originally thought. Basically it's not possible to do this reliably by checking presence of the device on the network. What we'll need to do is use Apple's location APIs on iOS to get notifications of changes in location, and then coordinate with macOS SecuritySpy to decide what actions to take. So while this should be coming in a future update, it will require some further work, and updates to both our iOS and macOS SecuritySpy apps.
  • brennabrenna
    Thanks for the update!
  • StianStian
    I have a Honeywell thermostat that has geofencing (basically, so it can save energy when I'm not home.) I believe it uses HomeKit APIs for geofencing. Would that be an option for SecuritySpy?
  • gr4zgr4z
    edited March 2018
    I use Home Assistant home automation and it's location features. It runs a remote SSH script when the last person leaves my home on my Mac which turns on SS motion detection. The reverse happens when the first person returns home.

    Works well.
  • brennabrenna
    ben, any update? Would love to see this as the alerts for "at home" vs "away" could be really cool and help me reduce the false positives.
  • CVHCVH
    +1 for this feature.
  • brennabrenna
    Ben, any update? Would love to reduce the alerts I’m getting because I walk in front of the camera.
  • BenBen
    Sorry, there has not been any progress on this since my message above. This is a difficult feature to implement, and other features have taken precedence. It's still on the "to do" list and will hopefully be added in the future, but I can't say when.
  • jayjay
    Hi Ben... Happy New Year!

    What are the top features that you are working to implement in 2020?
    ..."actions" for view only Macs. ;-)

    Jay
  • BenBen
    Hi Jay, we have some nice features planned for the year, but we generally don't make this information public as there is no particular upside to doing so, and people just get disappointed if promised features don't end up materialising. I can tell you that a major new update of the iOS app is currently in development. I can also tell you that we have no plans to add the ability to use Actions in view-only SecuritySpy instances (i.e. those that are unregistered and past the end of the trial period), sorry!
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