Triggering with only an Apple Watch and no network?

Posted on
Fri Nov 29, 2019 8:49 am
joesan offline
Posts: 98
Joined: Feb 12, 2008

Triggering with only an Apple Watch and no network?

TLDR: I have a non-cellular watch. Anyone have an idea how I can produce a trigger event using only some property of the watch with no network?


When I go for a run, I only have my watch, no iPhone. I can open my front door with Indigo via the phone (by SMS to Indigo that triggers a relay) but I'm trying to figure out how I can trigger an event (the door open) using only the non-cellular watch.

NFC is out because Apple doesn't give access. The front door is too far away to allow a bluetooth connection to the network. What else could be used on a watch with no network? That's the challenge!

Posted on
Fri Nov 29, 2019 9:31 am
siclark offline
Posts: 1960
Joined: Jun 13, 2017
Location: UK

Re: Triggering with only an Apple Watch and no network?

Could you get a rpi near the door to use pibeacon?

Posted on
Fri Nov 29, 2019 10:34 am
joesan offline
Posts: 98
Joined: Feb 12, 2008

Re: Triggering with only an Apple Watch and no network?

That could be workable. I must confess I really don't know where to start with RPI but it seems like it would be worth learning.

And I could get an RPI there and power...

Posted on
Fri Nov 29, 2019 11:04 am
siclark offline
Posts: 1960
Joined: Jun 13, 2017
Location: UK

Re: Triggering with only an Apple Watch and no network?

Could you get a rpi near the door to use pibeacon?

Posted on
Thu May 07, 2020 6:49 am
jmdraper offline
Posts: 103
Joined: Sep 11, 2014
Location: Surrey, UK

Re: Triggering with only an Apple Watch and no network?

I'm also interested in this, though for a slightly different use case. I couldn't easily find confirmation that Apple Watch would work as a BLE beacon for piBeacon. Can someone confirm that works?

Thanks!

Posted on
Fri Oct 02, 2020 8:05 pm
jstewart30 offline
Posts: 28
Joined: Jul 03, 2014

Re: Triggering with only an Apple Watch and no network?

If you can connect to Wifi on the Watch from outside your house, you can use the Homekit Indigo plugin to connect your Indigo devices to the Apple Home app and control things with Siri and/or the Home app on the Watch. I had the same issue as you, and although I have cellular as well, it works just great on Wifi only.

Posted on
Fri Oct 02, 2020 10:31 pm
kw123 offline
User avatar
Posts: 8333
Joined: May 12, 2013
Location: Dallas, TX

Triggering with only an Apple Watch and no network?

The Apple watch as the iPhone are the opposite of an iBeacon.

They listen for ibeacons.

Ibeacons are very dumb device. They just send a ping with their “uuid” every second That is it.

Then an app has to read these pings/uuid and do something with it.

Now the pibeacon system offers another approach to detect / trace iPhones
The rpis can send a ble request “hi” to the phone / watch. The iPhone will answer and will also reply w tx power. The rpi will not go beyond the “hi.”

With that you can check for the presence of an iPhone. That does not work with WiFi.
The Iphone needs to try to connect to your WiFi

That might take several minutes after you arrive at home.
And also the iPhone can go to a low power mode where it disconnects from WiFi while you at home.

the ble “hi” seems to work better. But not perfectly

This might also work w the watch.
I have not used a watch for the last 20 years and Will likely not use an Apple Watch on my arm in the near future.

Karl


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Page 1 of 1

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests

cron