Geofence issue

Perplexed

Getting the hang of it
Joined
Sep 5, 2022
Messages
70
Reaction score
98
Location
USA
BI PC version 5.6.3.7 x64 (however my issue has been on every Blue Iris version/not something new)
BI IOS version 2.03.07
IOS 16.1.1 (however occurred on prior 15.x versions as well)

I deployed BI a few months ago and have been learning as I go. Been trying to read/search the forums as well to see if there was a solution. Alas, I give up and am posting this thread.

I use a VPN to access BI remotely - I did NOT punch a hole in my firewall/port forward and would prefer to avoid that. I'd rather deal with this issue than deal with the security implications of port forwarding.

I've setup the geofence on the iOS BI app and related configurations on my PC for geofence. The goal is for when I'm home (inside geofence/home wifi) that I get alerts via the BI app where I can easily view video clips. If I'm not home/outside of Wifi/"away", alerts go through pushover. I have the geofence setup to switch my profiles between "home" and "away"

What I've observed is that when I leave, about 75% of the time the geofence update will fail and not switch the profile to away. I have never had an issue switching to "home"

I've played around with the geofence radius options in the iOS app; even getting down to 3m did not fix the issue.

I've noticed that when it fails, I'll typically get a notification of geofence update failure approximately 100 yards from my house (well outside of wifi range, and significantly further than the 3m setting). If I connect to my home VPN when I am outside of the geofence... BI will update the profile to "away" without any further user intervention.

It appears that the iOS BI app will realize when I'm outside of the GeoFence, it's just slow to react and doesn't appear to be sensitive enough to switch before I leave wifi coverage (I have the geofence spot selected for the "rear" of my house..... furthest from my driveway. My wifi will cover my driveway.... so in theory, I should be well within wifi for it to switch over to the away profile).

Is there a trick to this that I'm missing? Is there an alternative product to use for geofence/profile updates?

I've used SmartThings in the past for HA stuff; however a lot of equipment has failed over the years and I've been getting away from the HA stuff as a result. It's just too frustrating. We do use Life360 for child location - I saw there was an integration at some point, I just haven't found much on it.

Appreciate any help!
 

Mike A.

Known around here
Joined
May 6, 2017
Messages
3,825
Reaction score
6,377
Not reliable on mine either. Sometimes more or less but can't really depend on it. But that applies to other things when trying to use geolocation too.
 
Top