Since a few weeks iCloud presence detection has stopped working, so I went looking for an alternative. I considered many different options but at the moment there isn’t a ‘perfect’ solution for iPhone users.

I’m using this setup for a few days now and it works pretty well!

At first: security

(you can skip this if you don’t care about security, but I highly recommend you do this)

Create a new user at ‘users’ in your Pimatic config

{
  "username": "ifttt",
  "password": "xxxxxxxxxx",
  "role": "ifttt"
}

under ‘roles’ in your Pimatic config create a new role:

{
  "name": "ifttt",
  "permissions": {
    "pages": "none",
    "rules": "none",
    "variables": "none",
    "messages": "none",
    "events": "none",
    "devices": "read",
    "groups": "none",
    "plugins": "none",
    "updates": "none",
    "config": "none",
    "controlDevices": true,
    "restart": false
  }
}

The ‘ifttt’ user role can only read and control devices, nothing else.

Dummy presence device

You will need to control a device via the Pimatic API therefore you need a device.
Add the following under “devices” in the config:

{
  "id": "iphone",
  "name": "iPhone",
  "class": "DummyPresenceSensor",
  "autoReset": false
}

IFTTT configuration

0_1486047204676_Schermafbeelding 2017-02-02 om 15.53.14.png

We need to create two applets which are going to send a web request to Pimatic.

When you enter a specific area (specify your location) then select maker channel and enter the following settings:

  • url
    https://{ifttt}:{xxxxxx}@{pimatic-public-adres}/api/device/{presence-device-id}/changePresenceTo?presence=true
  • method
    get
  • Content Type
    application/json
    -body
    (I left this empty)

Create the same applet again, leave everything the same but change the URL to:
https://{ifttt}:{xxxxxx}@{pimatic-public-adres}/api/device/{presence-device-id}/changePresenceTo?presence=false

Thats it! You’re done :confetti_ball: .