Geofencing not working

[grahamam107]

Geofencing was not working for three users. I changed automation to test it by setting it to one person leaves rather than everyone leaves, and I arrive rather than anyone arrives. The system recognises when I leave by arming and sending notification, but does not recognise me coming home. I.e no notification and doesn’t disarm.  How do I fix this useless software?

[jguerdat]

Rebuilding the Arrive automation may help. What phone and OS version are you using? Is the location service set for the app to use it all the time?

[grahamam107]

iphone 12, 17.5.1,  arlo secure 4.14.6.  location services set to always.  Does rebuilding the automation mean delete it and start again?  

I am curious where the automations and modes are actually stored and pushed to various devices.  I have noticed if I change something  by logging in on my desktop, the change does not necessarily propogate to my phone, or other users that have admin rights.  I would have thought propagation to all devices should be immediate if they are online or when they log in.  This doesn’t seem to be the case.

I also have not worked out whether in the automations, the schedules and geolocations are treated as triggers or states.  For example, if I am away and arlo was armed by trigger of crossing the boundary, can a subsequent schedule trigger to disarm take precedence over the fact that my location state is still away.

All in all, I just wish Arlo would get their act together on this stuff.  I only persist because of my investment in their hardware and that one day they might fix the software.

[StephenB]

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@grahamam107 wrote:

I also have not worked out whether in the automations, the schedules and geolocations are treated as triggers or states.  

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They are triggers.  At time X, change the mode to "Standby".  When everyone leaves, change the mode to "Armed away"

That makes it difficult to combine scheduling and geofencing.  You can tell one automation to enable or disable another automation.  But you need to work through the full state diagram to make sure you end up with something that works correctly.

[grahamam107]

For the geofencing trigger, is the trigger activated every time that the phone location is checked and compared to the base station location, or does it effectively only happen once when the boundary is crossed?  If every time, how often is location checked?  I sometimes get alerts from Apple that Arlo has used location services many times and do I want to keep allowing this, which I confirm is ok.

[StephenB]

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@grahamam107 wrote:

For the geofencing trigger, is the trigger activated every time that the phone location is checked and compared to the base station location, or does it effectively only happen once when the boundary is crossed? 

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The automation is triggered when the boundary is crossed.

I don't know how often the app is checking the location (Arlo hasn't said).

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@grahamam107 wrote:

 I sometimes get alerts from Apple that Arlo has used location services many times and do I want to keep allowing this, which I confirm is ok.

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If you are using geofencing, then you do need to allow this.

[grahamam107]

Thanks for your insights @StephenB .  If it is a trigger on geofencing, do you know how Arlo responds if the phone crosses the geofence when it has a flat battery, is turned off or is in airplane mode?  Can it gracefully recover and recognise the fence has been crossed when the phone is functional again?

[StephenB]

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@grahamam107 wrote:

Can it gracefully recover and recognise the fence has been crossed when the phone is functional again?

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That's not something I've tested.