Best Way(s) to speed up presence detection?

[torpid snow]

I wrote a couple SUPER basic automations recently, to auto control my garage door, right?

I thought the testing was going well… got in the car, started it, and the garage door just opened

My roommate closed it thinking I had forgotten, before I even reached the end of the street 🤦‍♂️ so that test had to wait to be run again

But on my way back, just as I was turning the corner, I could see the door opening

After I was parked in the garage and I killed the engine, the door closed like it’s supposed to

However, after just not getting back to that missed test… I had to run to the grocery store last minute, 11 minutes before they closed. Not a trip you can exactly doodle on, but I’ve done it enough times I was confident I’d do it again, which I did. However though, what I noticed after I’d walked out of the store and gotten BACK into my car for an entirely new drive (home), was my phone telling me it was running my automation…

It didn’t detect I was gone for like 10 minutes!

What’s the point of setting up geofencing in the app, if it’s not watching, and only long polling?? My assumption was within about 30 seconds or so, maybe a minute at most, that the automation with the trigger “when I leave” should trigger right after crossing a given fence line… am I wrong? Expecting too much??

Either way, what are things I can do to make Home Assistant more responsive to our presence?

[rose magnet]

what are you using for geofencing. a lot of wifi trackers have a fairly long timeout, and they take priority. gps trackers tend to be more accurate when used in conjunction with the high accuracy option, which has a great option to only turn on when youre in a certain range outside your home zone. it really sounds like a device tracker problem rather than an automation problem. you can mitigate it by changing your automation but youre rather just fix it at the source which is presence detection

[torpid snow]

I’m using the iPhone app and my home “zone” for geofencing

The automation uses me as a person, when I leave the zone, as a trigger

In m profile, I have Home Assistant’s native companion app geofence tracking as my first item, but then I also have a number more different trackers beneath that one

The docs said the most recent device to report in will trigger a person’s current state, o it definitely feels like the more the better

I don’t see any of my other trackers (until I get my BLE tracking via BT Proxy working anyway) being any faster than the companion app

They’re mostly just checking the network to see if I’m on Wi-Fi, or pinging my devices

[rose magnet]

This page gives a breakdown of how tracker priority works

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/person

Tldr if you have a stationary tracker that sees you at home (like wifi), it will consider you home even if your GPS is miles away.

Go to settings -> people -> [your name] and list out the devices in the drop downs at the bottom under "Select the devices that belong to this person"