Presence detection

Simple yet cool to have

Another recent addition to my home system is the ability to detect the presence of people.  There are many ways to achieve this, as a start I went for the simplest, but the beauty of it, is that you can expand on how you determine presence.

For me to determine this, I installed the network binding in OpenHAB and assigned static IP addresses to our cell phones, every couple of seconds the system will ping the phones, and based on the ICMP responses, display where the person is home and away.  As a start this is okay but not ideal.  Many reasons this could not work such as if the WiFi is off on the phone or if the phone is left at home.  But for now, this works for me.  The upside to presence detection is adding automation rules such as switching off air-conditioners or closing the blinds when leaving the house.

Below are some images of the app interface and how I decided to show who is home.