HomeKit Different settings for day and night?

[eddjedi]

I have a Homepod Mini running os18 and 2 x Aqara cameras in my detached home office, which shares the same LAN but has its own router with a different SSID - I assumed having two different wireless networks would make this easy, but apparently Homekit still sees them as part of the same "home."

I cannot find a way of setting different notifications for the office as opposed to the main house. Either of these two options would be fine:

1. Notifications of movement only in the office and only when I am not in there (but may be in the main house)
2. Notifications of movement only in the office and only at night, regardless of where I am

I cannot find any way of setting this up through either notifications or automations. All I can do currently is notifications when I'm not at home at all (office or house) or at any time, and I don't really want it recording my every movement in the office.

Surely this must be a fairly regular use case? I have heard of "zones" but as I only have a Homepod in the office, there isn't one in the main house, I'm not sure if that's possible. Any help appreciated.

 

[waw74]

zones just make it easier to talk to siri, They let you create room groups. For example, you can make downstairs and upstairs zones. and then ask siri to turn off the downstairs lights. instead of asking her to turn off the living room, kitchen and dining room lights.

#2 is easy, you can put time conditions on notifications, just set up notifications, and they you can select only at night.

#1 is going to be harder. as there's currently no way in homekit to tell where you are within your house. Convert to shortcut won't help either, since you can't get location in a homekit shortcut.

for #1 You might be able to do something with homebridge, there are occupancy sensor plugins that use IP address being on the network to set them. You could set up different Jedi-home, and Jedi-office wifi networks, Both would be connected to the same LAN, and then configure your phone with different manual IP addresses for each network. But that might take a bit of work to make sure your phone only connects to the proper location for where it is. and you'll obviously need separate wifi access points in your home and office.

second thought on 1,You could make a dummy switch, either through homebridge, or just get a physical device and not plug anything into it. you'll need to make automations to turn it on or off depending on if you enter or leave the office. then make an automation for the motion sensor, convert to shortcut, have it check that dummy switch, and display a message if it's off. depending on the size and separation of everything location may or may not work, since location can be not so accurate when you're inside.

 

[eddjedi]

Thanks, that's helpful. I'll have a look at the notifications solution.

 

[flynz4]

Is your objective one of security of your office. Is so, you might want to get some security equipment and use that to alert you if there is activity or entry into your detached office. I would not use HomeKit as a controller for security. It’s just too unreliable. Some security systems even have free self monitoring plans.

Of course , I could be off base about your objective being security. If so, please just ignore my suggestion.

 

[eddjedi]

Sorry I forgot to reply. Yes security is the reason, obviously I realise a homekit camera is no replacement for a proper burglar alarm system but it's better than nothing, and something I can cheaply install myself.