Presence detection

Presence detection combines components of your choice into a single answer: is anybody on site? That answer is offered as a device called Presence — automations, scenes and the usage recording work with it, and the app shows it like any other device.

Which components qualify is up to you: motion detectors and presence sensors, door contacts, but also switches or the states of other systems — anything that gives evidence of somebody being there.

Inputs

An input is a component and one of its status values. There are two kinds:

• Presence and absence — two-way inputs that can report both, such as a security panel or the presence report of another system.

• Presence only — inputs that prove somebody is there but never the opposite. A motion detector belongs here: somebody asleep does not trigger it.

At least one two-way input has to be able to report absence, otherwise presence would stay switched on forever. The page points this out for as long as it is missing.

For every input you choose the interpretation: either on means present (inverted on request), or you enter specific values — a panel reporting HOME, AWAY, NIGHT, OFF and ALARM is one input with value lists (presence: HOME, ALARM — absence: AWAY). Use every component with every status value only once.

Two times make the interpretation practical:

• Grace period — how long an input still counts as present after it drops. Some sources disappear briefly and answer again a few minutes later; without a grace period every one of those gaps would count as absence right away.

• Hold time — how long a presence-only input keeps counting after its last trigger.

Manual override

Presence can be set by hand at any time — in the app on the device (Automatic, Present, Absent) or through scenes. The mode decides how long such an override holds:

• Assisted — a manual away is dropped as soon as an input reports somebody. Otherwise whatever hangs on absence would fire while somebody is on site.

• Timed — like Assisted, and the override additionally expires by itself after the set time.

• Fixed — the override stands until it is lifted by hand. The inputs are then only recorded.

Quick start

Two templates create, once, what most installations build anyway:

• Scenes for switching by hand — the scenes At home and Away, for pressing in the app or wiring to a push-button.

• Automation on the status change — two log messages and an automation that writes them: one as soon as somebody is on site, the other as soon as nobody is left. Whatever else should happen goes straight into the automation.

What comes out of this is yours afterwards: rename it, rebuild it or delete it — the function never touches it again.

The "Presence" device

When switched on, the function creates the device Presence. It shows the current state, takes the manual override, and is available to automations and scenes as trigger and condition. Like any device you can rename it and assign it to a room — it can only be deleted by resetting the function.