homebridge-people

This is a plugin for homebridge. It monitors who is at home, based on received webhooks sent by location-aware mobile apps (such as Locative, which can use iBeacons and geofencing to provide faster and more accurate location information.

Installation

1. Install homebridge (if not already installed) using: npm install -g homebridge
2. Install this plugin using: npm install -g homebridge-people-geofence
3. Update your configuration file. See below for a sample.

Configuration

"accessories": [
	{
  "accessory" : "GeoFence",
  "name" : "People",
  "people" : [
   { "name" : "John"},
   { "name" : "Rachel"}
  ],
  "anyoneSensor" : true,
  "nooneSensor" : false
 }
],

How it works

• When started homebridge-people-geofence will create a webserver that listen to http requests on port 51829.
• With an iBeacon or geofencing smartphone app, you can configure a HTTP push to trigger when you enter and exit your 'home' region.
• When a request is successful the status Home or Away is logged to a file ("person_NAME") in the persist folder
• When a Homekit enabled app looks up the state of a person the state of the person is pulled out of that file.

'Anyone' and 'No One' sensors

Some HomeKit automations need to happen when "anyone" is home or when "no one" is around, but the default Home app makes this difficult. homebridge-people-geofence can automatically create additional sensors called "Anyone" and "No One" to make these automations very easy.

For example, you might want to run your "Arrive Home" scene when Anyone gets home. Or run "Leave Home" when No One is home.

These sensors can be enabled by adding "anyoneSensor" : true and "nooneSensor" : true to your homebridge config.json file.

Accuracy

This plugin requires that the device where the location app is installed will be online and location permission will be approved even when the app is closed.

this plugin can receive a HTTP push from the app to immediately see you as present or not present when you physically enter or exit your desired region. This is particularly useful for "Arrive Home" and "Depart Home" HomeKit automations.

Pairing with a location-aware mobile app

Apps like Locative range for iBeacons and geofences by using core location APIs available on your smartphone. With bluetooth and location services turned on, these apps can provide an instantaneous update when you enter and exit a desired region.

To use this plugin with one of these apps, configure your region and set the HTTP push to http://youripaddress:51829/?sensor=[name]&state=true for arrival, and http://youripaddress:51829/?sensor=[name]&state=false for departure, where [name] is the name of the person the device belongs to as specified in your config under people. Note: you may need to enable port forwarding on your router to accomplish this.

By default homebridge-people-geofence listens on port 51828 for updates. This can be changed by setting webhookPort in your homebridge config.json.

Notes

Credits

This plugin was forked and inspired from homebridge-people by PeteLawrence. Basically, it takes the the last released feature of the people plugin and isolate it. makes the plugin not depended on WiFi network or any connection. simple Home and Away status.

Running on a raspberry pi as non 'pi' user

On some versions of raspbian, users are not able to use the ping program by default. If none of your devices show online try running sudo chmod u+s /bin/ping. Thanks to oberstmueller for the tip.