Homekit multi user geofencing

Agree - this is exactly what I was trying to accomplish. HomeKit geofencing should be smart enough to only run the "When I Leave Home" automation when the last person leaves the home and to only run "When I Arrive Home" when the first person arrives home (and not re-run when the 2nd person arrives, etc.). Expected with 10.3 as well. Hopefully, we won't have to wait until iOS 11!

Yes the Apple HomeKit platform "could" be very very good. I have been a Smart home hobbiest for 15 years and I feel this has the real potential to be an excellent platform (one of the best). The problem is apple is so slow at fixing/addressing issues. I can't think of any smart home user who will wait an entire year for a fix for issues and/or features. I was hoping that the last 10.3.x release would add something new...apart from a new hardware module.

My seasoned advice is do nothing...purchase NOTHING apart from a couple of test units until the software develops...its the software that will kill this before its even started. The current hardware out there (whilst not extensive) is really good quality and works well.

Come on Apple..everyone else now is running rings around you.

So yes there is a HomeKit bridge based on

https://github.com/nfarina/homebridge

Which is very good. One of the modules that someone has written can bridge the gap with this functionality that you want. I have not personally tried this yet.

I would be nice if apple thought about it a bit more to allow automation's to be scheduled also. I don't want the lights coming on when I come home if it's the middle of the day. Maybe a automation that can be scheduled to only run after sunset and before sunrise would be handy with the option to pad sunset and sunrise by x minutes. Also being able to rename a automation so you can tell which user it's for would also be great.

supposedly all of this was fixed in the beta version of ios 11, I downloaded it for myself and my wife, and the problem still exists.. has anyone gotten multi user geofencing to work? if so what did you do? I am guessing you have to select "share when your home" - still doesn't work..

S

You might already be aware, but iOS 11 (due for release soon) is supposed to have multi-user geofencing. See http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/06/14/inside-ios-11-homekit-gains-multi-pers on-geofencing-conditional-triggers

I have the same question. On my primary apple ID account (my phone), I can set automation to turn stuff on or off based on geofencing (I AM ARRIVING or I AM LEAVING) of my phone. Problem is, if my wife is still home, we don't want the automation to run. I would like to have "I AM LEAVING" automation run only if BOTH my phone AND my wife's phone (separate apple ID on family sharing) have left the house, so if only 1 of us has left, nothing changes. Conversely, I want the "I AM ARRIVING" automation to run if EITHER phone enters the house geofence.

Is this possible?

Thanks

Doesn't the geofencing work with multiple people when you add your wife (or child or whoever) to the home app as guest users of your home?

Unfortunately no. Even though I've invited my wife to our Homekit setup on the Home app, and she has accepted, geofencing automations only work with my geo location. She can manually control everything, but doesn't have the automations tab at the bottom of the Home app screen. So I can't even setup a duplicate geo location automation for her. Seems weird that this would be the intended function with multiple users but I can't find any way to have geo location automations work with her phone too.

Yes that's indeed weird.. I don't have an explanation or solution at the moment but if I find something, I'll let you know!

This doesn't allow family geofence.

Not sure what you mean by 'this', but all I was mentioning was how to get the'automation' tab to appear on the phone.

Family geofence is a totally different problem which I'm still trying to figure.

Does Apple monitor these threads

I completely agree that this is a major shortcoming to the current iteration of HomeKit.

Does anyone know how to submit a recommendation for this functionality to Apple?

Yes it does. I have this setup for my wife and kids. You have to turn on editing as described and use (say your wife's phone) to create the automation. All works perfectly.