Suggestion: Add on-network detection to geofence

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n3wb
Jun 14, 2017
24
1
Hey all, so the geofence feature of blue iris is awesome, I was often forgetting to turn the sytem on when in a rush, and this is a great solution, except for one part of it, I live in a basement suite.

Now, in some areas, it's fine, but in a lot of areas, my phone must loose gps signal, because blue iris switches over to my regular mode, which sends email and text alerts when motion is detected on the camera inside my house, and boy oh boy, does it get old to have it randomly go off when you go to the washroom, or get a drink.

I was thinking a good solution would be to also detect if the device is on the same network as the blue iris server, this would negate the need for the geofence really, but it could be tied in with it, so that if you were using a vpn for example it could double check the gps position too.

Maybe it's already a feature, but I don't think so, and I'd love to see it added to the application, since the app itself wasn't free. Not sure if the developer reads these forums, if not maybe I'll fire off an email.
 
Not entirely related, I built something years ago that solved this. Not sure what I did with the code. But for the technically brave, it's a simple solution that really worked well.

1.) Static DHCP entry for all phones in the house.
2.) Set phones to keep wifi on (Back in the day, this was easy and the phones would go into a low power check-in state without impacting battery that much. Not sure about newest IOS/Android versions but probably similar.)
3.) Python or whatever code/protocol you are comfortable with -- Run a little program that pings out to phones. I set mine to do this every two minutes if I remember correctly.
4.) IF no response twice, THEN send traffic light signal change to BI via URL GET/CURL/WGET/etc
5.) Success...(sorta...)

Issues:
1.) I set up an outdoor AP that blasted signal to reach the phone and back about a block away. This gave me enough time to get into the driveway where the traffic signal was usually changed. Sometimes this didn't happen--especially if I ever drove as if I had to go to the bathroom (also likely root cause haha)
2.) This method again requires a pretty consistent ping rate and if battery life drains too much depending on device, it's more of a pain than anything else. That's mainly why you don't see near real-time geofencing utilizing this strategy. App makers are very reluctant to stray away from the GPS heartbeat.

Others online I see use bluetooth beacons and that seems to work well in some cases, but I haven't really dabbled. Might be more effective depending on check-in times.

*edit/update* I just tested with a newer iPhone and yeah it looks like this functionality is pretty tricky by itself. WIFI goes to instant sleep mode when screen is off. Would probably have to download a keepalive app that runs constantly in background. I did this off of Android years ago but maybe Android now has the same challenge too, to reduce battery drain.
 
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