Automation to activate Focus at certain time, but ONLY when home!

[JaCkPoT_]

I want my Focus "Home" to be enabled when the following 2 conditions are met:
1. I must be at Home (my own location)
2. It should only be on between 00:00 (midnight) and 10:30 AM.

If I set the focus setting to both "at location" and "time 00:00 to 10:30" it will activate every time I'm home regardless of time, and it will also activate at 00:00 regardless of where I am.. I have also tried to add the "Smart activation" but that does not seem to do any changes for me.

So to get this to work, I guess I have to make an automation in the shortcut app. However, I have tried and tried (I'm a real newbie here), and I don't seem to make it work. I have also tried ChatGPT's iPhone shortcuts and a website that makes the shortcuts for you via AI, but none of them have made it work for me.

I find it very strange that Apple does not have an "AND/OR" option for the focus settings.

Is there anyone here that know if this i even possible? And if so, maybe could help me to set this up?

 

[BigBlur]

So to get this to work, I guess I have to make an automation in the shortcut app. However, I have tried and tried (I'm a real newbie here), and I don't seem to make it work. I have also tried ChatGPT's iPhone shortcuts and a website that makes the shortcuts for you via AI, but none of them have made it work for me.

Yeah, you would need to create a couple automations. It's not possible with a single automation, which may be why you're getting stuck.

• One to run at 00:00 every day.
  • Check if you are home. If so, turn on Focus; if not, do nothing.
    • This can be accomplished several different ways.
      • Use Get Current Location (street) and check if it matches your street.
      • Use Get Distance action (current location to your home location) and check if you're within 100m or so.
      • Use Get Network Details action to get the Wi-Fi network name that the device is connected to and check if it matches your home Wi-Fi network name. (This is assuming your phone is always connected to Wi-Fi when you are home, and that your Wi-Fi has a fairly unique name.)
• One that runs when you arrive home.
  • Check if the current time is between 00:00 and 10:30. If so, turn on Focus; if not, do nothing.

I find it very strange that Apple does not have an "AND/OR" option for the focus settings.

I agree. Home automations sort of have this option already, but still require two separate automations depending on what you want to do. With Home automations, you can have something run at a certain time, but only if you're home; similarly, you can have something run when you arrive home, but only during certain hours. The above is basically just replicating that logic manually.

 

[NoBoMac]

To add to what @BigBlur wrote, another way to accomplish "where" is to save a flag/bit to a file. An "AtHome?" flag.

So, an Automation for "when arrive home" geofence, in addition to the suggested time check above, save/set "AtHome" flag to true. And have a corresponding Automation for "when leave home", unset the flag.

I do this, along with other flags for tracking time of day, location, in the car, etc via a dictionary file. Aka a simple database, lookup table. Let the phone do the heavy lifting to determine things and simply see if a condition is true or false.

Spoiler: Lookup Table

{
  "AtHome": 0,
  "GymDay": 0,
  "HaveAppt": 0,
  "CellStats": "05-13-2025",
  "EventTime": "",
  "FootballDay": 0,
  "HaveWatch": 1,
  "BedTime": 0,
  "LastNoteBackup": "04-14-2025 10:30:03",
  "InCar": 0,
  "FaceList": 1,
  "HikeDay": 0,
  "IsNight": 0,
  "SilenceUnknown": 1,
  "LastVolume": -1,
  "LastDropSync": "04-14-2025 10:30:12",
  "WhichAW": "AW10",
  "Today": "2025-04-14"
}

 

[JaCkPoT_]

Yeah, you would need to create a couple automations. It's not possible with a single automation, which may be why you're getting stuck.

• One to run at 00:00 every day.
  • Check if you are home. If so, turn on Focus; if not, do nothing.
    • This can be accomplished several different ways.
      • Use Get Current Location (street) and check if it matches your street.
      • Use Get Distance action (current location to your home location) and check if you're within 100m or so.
      • Use Get Network Details action to get the Wi-Fi network name that the device is connected to and check if it matches your home Wi-Fi network name. (This is assuming your phone is always connected to Wi-Fi when you are home, and that your Wi-Fi has a fairly unique name.)
• One that runs when you arrive home.
  • Check if the current time is between 00:00 and 10:30. If so, turn on Focus; if not, do nothing.

I agree. Home automations sort of have this option already, but still require two separate automations depending on what you want to do. With Home automations, you can have something run at a certain time, but only if you're home; similarly, you can have something run when you arrive home, but only during certain hours. The above is basically just replicating that logic manually.

Thanks for helping out!

I tried what you said, for the first step. However, I don't think I have the setup correct here, as it will now activate regardless of location.

I belive it's correct that the first section says "Turn Hjemme (home in Norwegian) on until Time 11:00", but I feel that I'm missing something in the IF section, I have "Get current location", but it should be more?

Again, I'm very noob, so sorry for the basic questions

 

[JaCkPoT_]

I’ve been searching and trying now, and I figured it out at the end! Thanks again for helping, it put me in the right track for sure.