I would need a tile attached to my glasses, my phone, my watch, my wallet, my keys, my water bottle. Or I could just listen to my wife's advice and put things back in the same place every day.
However how quickly do you think until these will be used by teenagers and hide one in their crushes backpack, or someplace else. Just so they can learn at an early age to be a creepy stoker. That age kids are learning new interactions and undoubtedly are going to be doing stupid stuff, as it is often very common fo
I would need a tile attached to my glasses, my phone, my watch, my wallet, my keys, my water bottle. Or I could just listen to my wife's advice and put things back in the same place every day.
I'm rather hopeful that Apple will expose AirTag location functionality into HomeKit. That way, we could script automations based on device location.
If that happens, I'd put these in my cars, both to aid finding them in large parking lots and to script activities when vehicles leave or arrive home.
I'm glad you brought that up. It's pretty easy to come up with common scenarios where using your phone presence for certain types of home automation breaks down badly. The problem with using your phone is that th automation becomes attached to your phone presence, and not necessarily the activity you want it attached to.
Let's use an easy example that many people can likely sympathize with. Let's say I have a very simple phone presence automation whereby when my phone gets within 25m of home, the garage door opens. Now that may initially seem like a rational automation -- and if you only ever enter your home by vehicle, I suppose it could work. But what happens when you take your dog for a walk? I suspect you wouldn't leave your phone at home, right? And do you want to deal with the hassle of having your garage door open every time you walk up to your front door without your vehicle?
The big problem with using your phone presence for such types of automation is that they are effectively attached to you, and not the actual activity you're performing that you want to trigger the automation. Like most people, you probably take your phone whether you're driving, walking, going for a bike ride, or taking a taxi -- and for some types of automations, you may only want your activity to run when you're using some of those modes of egress from your home, but not all of them.
Using tags attached to specific items (or in this case, vehicles) fixes that problem. They are dedicated specifically to that item(/vehicle), so you can have specific automations that work in specific circumstances. So for example, an automation whereby if your car tag is within 2m of your phone (as you'll still need something to detect the tag and communicate its location) AND that tag enters your detection zone opens your garage door means that every time you return home from taking the dog on a walk or the kids to the playground won't open your garage door.
In its most basic essence, the presence of suitable tags gives you more bits of data to work with in making automation decisions. By way of more complex ideas, if you have a multi-car garage maybe you have an automation that detects if one car is not present and it's past sunset, you turn on the lights. Maybe it makes sense where if all cars have left, you enable the security system automatically.
And unlike my phone, being able to make automations based on a vehicles whereabouts doesn't require the presence of my phone either. If your mother drops by and borrows your car, your vehicle presence automations could still work, even though you're carrying your phone with you somewhere else, as other phones that car passes will be able to report on its location.
In short, your phone alone is great for determining the presence of your phone (and presumably you), but doesn't give granular details on the specific activities you're undertaking for making smarter decisions. Having tags on bikes or vehicles that can be acted up in HomeKit (or really any smart home system) gives you much more granular control over the what and how so your smart home can make better decisions.
I would look foolish for it to be useful. (Score:1)
I would need a tile attached to my glasses, my phone, my watch, my wallet, my keys, my water bottle. Or I could just listen to my wife's advice and put things back in the same place every day.
However how quickly do you think until these will be used by teenagers and hide one in their crushes backpack, or someplace else. Just so they can learn at an early age to be a creepy stoker. That age kids are learning new interactions and undoubtedly are going to be doing stupid stuff, as it is often very common fo
Re: (Score:2)
I would need a tile attached to my glasses, my phone, my watch, my wallet, my keys, my water bottle. Or I could just listen to my wife's advice and put things back in the same place every day.
I'm rather hopeful that Apple will expose AirTag location functionality into HomeKit. That way, we could script automations based on device location.
If that happens, I'd put these in my cars, both to aid finding them in large parking lots and to script activities when vehicles leave or arrive home.
Yaz
Re: (Score:2)
Can't you already do that using your iPhones*?
* I'm assuming you have iPhones if you're looking into AirTags and already using HomeKit.
Re:I would look foolish for it to be useful. (Score:3, Insightful)
Can't you already do that using your iPhones*?
I'm glad you brought that up. It's pretty easy to come up with common scenarios where using your phone presence for certain types of home automation breaks down badly. The problem with using your phone is that th automation becomes attached to your phone presence, and not necessarily the activity you want it attached to.
Let's use an easy example that many people can likely sympathize with. Let's say I have a very simple phone presence automation whereby when my phone gets within 25m of home, the garage door opens. Now that may initially seem like a rational automation -- and if you only ever enter your home by vehicle, I suppose it could work. But what happens when you take your dog for a walk? I suspect you wouldn't leave your phone at home, right? And do you want to deal with the hassle of having your garage door open every time you walk up to your front door without your vehicle?
The big problem with using your phone presence for such types of automation is that they are effectively attached to you, and not the actual activity you're performing that you want to trigger the automation. Like most people, you probably take your phone whether you're driving, walking, going for a bike ride, or taking a taxi -- and for some types of automations, you may only want your activity to run when you're using some of those modes of egress from your home, but not all of them.
Using tags attached to specific items (or in this case, vehicles) fixes that problem. They are dedicated specifically to that item(/vehicle), so you can have specific automations that work in specific circumstances. So for example, an automation whereby if your car tag is within 2m of your phone (as you'll still need something to detect the tag and communicate its location) AND that tag enters your detection zone opens your garage door means that every time you return home from taking the dog on a walk or the kids to the playground won't open your garage door.
In its most basic essence, the presence of suitable tags gives you more bits of data to work with in making automation decisions. By way of more complex ideas, if you have a multi-car garage maybe you have an automation that detects if one car is not present and it's past sunset, you turn on the lights. Maybe it makes sense where if all cars have left, you enable the security system automatically.
And unlike my phone, being able to make automations based on a vehicles whereabouts doesn't require the presence of my phone either. If your mother drops by and borrows your car, your vehicle presence automations could still work, even though you're carrying your phone with you somewhere else, as other phones that car passes will be able to report on its location.
In short, your phone alone is great for determining the presence of your phone (and presumably you), but doesn't give granular details on the specific activities you're undertaking for making smarter decisions. Having tags on bikes or vehicles that can be acted up in HomeKit (or really any smart home system) gives you much more granular control over the what and how so your smart home can make better decisions.
Yaz