Geo-Fencing
I see an update for the Ooma Home Security App for iPhone has been released. That is a good sign. I look forward to seeing if it corrected the deficiencies with geofencing reliability.
Re: Geo-Fencing
So far Geofencing under the updated iPhone Home Security app version 1.8.1 is working great for my wife and I with our iPhone 6 & 6s. I know geofencing is still beta, but I appreciate Ooma for implementing the feature. Thanks! 
Re: Geo-Fencing
Installed the Android app released yesterday and today I tried out geofencing. Much to my surprise it actually worked!!
Re: Geo-Fencing
I updated the app on my Samsung SM-N920V Note 5 phones with better, but still unpredictable results. For example, I made sure both phones were set to "Affect systems Home-Away status", that GeoFencing was enabled, that Location service was enabled for Ooma Home Security, and that we drove away from home far enough (3/4 mile) for it to trigger an Away status.
It took one phone quite a while to show up as Away on the dashboard, but eventually (15 minutes?) they did. The status changed from Home to Away as expected at 2:04 pm CST (we're really CDT but the hours and minutes are correct).
At 2:06 pm CST there is a log entry for one phone arriving at home and switching to Home mode, immediately followed by an entry showing one phone left home and switching to Away mode.
At 2:14 pm CST we drove into our garage with both phones and there is a log entry showing one phone arrived and switching to home mode, immediately followed by an entry only stating the system was switching to Away mode.
At 2:15 pm CST there is an entry stating one phone had arrived at home, but no change in status (system is still in Away mode), so all the alarm functions triggered when at 2:18 pm CST we opened a door and triggered the door sensor and motion sensor.
At 2:17 pm CST, I manually switch to Home mode and disabled all GeoFencing.
I'm not seeing an improvement at all here, other than both phones now show up on the dashboard but you can't tell which phone is which icon. The application still reads the Phone Model Number and not the Phone Name which can be set by the consumer. For families with multiple copies of identical phones, there has to be some way to tell them apart in the application - please!!
It took one phone quite a while to show up as Away on the dashboard, but eventually (15 minutes?) they did. The status changed from Home to Away as expected at 2:04 pm CST (we're really CDT but the hours and minutes are correct).
At 2:06 pm CST there is a log entry for one phone arriving at home and switching to Home mode, immediately followed by an entry showing one phone left home and switching to Away mode.
At 2:14 pm CST we drove into our garage with both phones and there is a log entry showing one phone arrived and switching to home mode, immediately followed by an entry only stating the system was switching to Away mode.
At 2:15 pm CST there is an entry stating one phone had arrived at home, but no change in status (system is still in Away mode), so all the alarm functions triggered when at 2:18 pm CST we opened a door and triggered the door sensor and motion sensor.
At 2:17 pm CST, I manually switch to Home mode and disabled all GeoFencing.
I'm not seeing an improvement at all here, other than both phones now show up on the dashboard but you can't tell which phone is which icon. The application still reads the Phone Model Number and not the Phone Name which can be set by the consumer. For families with multiple copies of identical phones, there has to be some way to tell them apart in the application - please!!
Re: Geo-Fencing
When the new update came out for IOS. My wife and I enabled geo-fencing again. It worked fine for 2 days. Third day everything was back not working right again. My wife and I were together in the same places. One phone would suddenly be home and the other away. This kept happening even after we restarted both phones.
Since then I gave up and disabled geo-fencing. Hopefully this is not happening for anyone else.
Since then I gave up and disabled geo-fencing. Hopefully this is not happening for anyone else.
Re: Geo-Fencing
Me too. The update worked for about a week and now messed up again.
Re: Geo-Fencing
this has to be a bandwidth and timing issue. everything worked until more and more people started back up.
Re: Geo-Fencing
Hello all,
This is Anthony on the Product team at Ooma. Thank you for your feedback and recounts of your experiences. We have deployed some fixes for both iOS and Android, but we know there are still some outstanding issues. We are working hard to iron out the remaining ones, and will continue to release fixes for issues that come up with Geofencing.
Here are some suggestions for now:
- Geofencing on Android appears to fail on some phone models when your phone battery is low. We're working on a fix for this. For now, keep your phone battery charged. You can also try going to Android Settings > Device Maintenance > Battery and making sure that "Power saving mode" is disabled. The second method is not reliable though.
- We've seen issues on iOS where the phone tries to send a Geofence crossing event to our servers, but fails because the phone is in the process of transitioning from the user's home wi-fi to 3G/4G data. We're working on a fix for this. One thing you can try is setting your Geofencing radius to "Large" to make sure that you're on 3G/4G when you're crossing the geofence.
This is Anthony on the Product team at Ooma. Thank you for your feedback and recounts of your experiences. We have deployed some fixes for both iOS and Android, but we know there are still some outstanding issues. We are working hard to iron out the remaining ones, and will continue to release fixes for issues that come up with Geofencing.
Here are some suggestions for now:
- Geofencing on Android appears to fail on some phone models when your phone battery is low. We're working on a fix for this. For now, keep your phone battery charged. You can also try going to Android Settings > Device Maintenance > Battery and making sure that "Power saving mode" is disabled. The second method is not reliable though.
- We've seen issues on iOS where the phone tries to send a Geofence crossing event to our servers, but fails because the phone is in the process of transitioning from the user's home wi-fi to 3G/4G data. We're working on a fix for this. One thing you can try is setting your Geofencing radius to "Large" to make sure that you're on 3G/4G when you're crossing the geofence.
Re: Geo-Fencing
I’m on an iOS 11.3 device and I’m not missing just one crossing. I’ve tried both large and small areas, nothing works. When enabled all I see is blank for the status of the phone.
Re: Geo-Fencing
The Android app just decided I was away even though the phone has been in my living room all day. Geofencing still needs work.