I have a few old automations that are designed to unlock my front door, or open my garage door, depending on how I leave. If I ride my bike or car, it opens my garage, if I leave via front door, it opens the front door. Pretty simple. Except!!! I did this in pieces, so it’s 2 separate automations. One detects my phone entering the “home zone”, the other detects an event firing (iOS triggered the event via ‘shortcuts’)

There is now “zone based” automations, and there is also my “person entity”. So the way I see it, I have 3 different ways to tell when I come home:

  1. My phone’s gps enters the ‘home zone’

  2. My HA ‘person’ state changes from ‘away’ to ‘home’

  3. My phone’s shortcut app fires an event that is detected.

I feel like #1 and #2 are the same, no? I only have one device linked to my person entity, and it’s my phone. Is there any difference in this case? Is there a preferred choice?

  • Lemmee@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    I agree with this, but I also have an automation that alerts me when the door opens, and when it’s been open longer than 5 mins. I also have a condition on my garage door openings that stop them without confirmation if it’s after sunset.