Home sweet home! Make your lights turn on as you get home at night. Open your smart blinds, or close them. Adjust the temperature, turn on some nice music…
Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash
Or maybe you are looking to automate something when you are at work! Perhaps tracking the hours you are spending at your company’s offices?
Location-driven logic can be quite indistinguishable from magic these days, but sometimes it is not quite reliable: depending on your location in the World, some services might work better than others. Here we’ll let you know a few options you have for tracking if you or a family member has arrived home or to another specific location.
Note that if you want to track several devices, you’ll need applet duplicates to stay under the 3-applet limit. Just let me know below how many do you need for which service 
IFTTT’s location service
IFTTT’s location service is very easy to setup: you only need to install IFTTT’s mobile app and use the service to track if you have entered or left a specific location.
The downside is that it can take long to fire, and in some locations it is not very accurate. So do your own testing and decide if this is good enough for you or if you need to try some of the other options below.
These are some ready-made applets that don’t count towards your 3-applet limit:
- When I enter an area, run an Apilio Logicblock
- When I exit an area, run an Apilio Logicblock
- When I enter an area, update a variable in Apilio to true
- When I exit an area, update a variable in Apilio to false
If you want to use different phones, with different IFTTT accounts, you can have both phones send their updates to one Apilio account if you connect that IFTTT channel using just one Apilio user, like this:
- My phone: I am logged into IFTTT with my account, and when I connect Apilio in IFTTT I use my Apilio credentials.
- Partner’s phone: he is logged into IFTTT with his account, but when he connects Apilio on IFTTT, I used my Apilio credentials.
Android device: connect to a specific wifi
When your Android phone connects to your home or work WiFi, then you know you are close enough to connect to that internet connection. This is quite an accurate way of knowing if you are in a particular area. Here are some applets you could try:
- When my phone connects to a specific WiFi, set a variable to true in Apilio
- When my phone disconnects from a specific WiFi, set a variable to false in Apilio
Google Wifi
If you have Google WiFi, you can also check if a specific device has connected to the router:
- When a specific device connects to Google Wifi, set a variable to true in Apilio
- When a specific device disconnects from Google Wifi, set a variable to false in Apilio
- When a specific device connects to Google Wifi, run an Apilio Logicblock
- When a specific device disconnects from Google Wifi, run an Apilio Logicblock
TP-Link router
If you have a TP-Link router, they also offer the option to check if a device has connected or disconnected from the router. If this is your router, here are some applets for you:
- When a specific device connects to your TP-Link router, set a variable to true in Apilio
- When a specific device disconnects from your TP-Link router, set a variable to false in Apilio
- When a specific device disconnects from your TP-Link router, run an Apilio Logicblock
- When a specific device connects to your TP-Link router, run an Apilio Logicblock
D-Link Wi-Fi Router
If you have a D-Link router, let me know and I’ll create the applets for you 
Any other ideas…?
Do you have any other ideas for tracking who is at home at a specific time? Let us know below, thanks all!
Related articles
!!
Now i can get my wife telling apilio if home or not.
