You may be asking yourself what are Geo-Services? You've probably heard of them, although they go by a variety of names. What we are referring to by Geo-Services is the ability to automatically make changes to your thermostat, security system or lighting in your home based solely on your physical location. The idea is that these changes happen as you travel about your normal day, based on rules you have set up beforehand.
Let me explain; l commute to work 20 miles from my home. I also visit friends and go out to eat near my home. Most activities are within 30 miles of where I live. While I am doing normal things like going to work or out to eat, I want my thermostat to stay around the same temperature in my home. I know I will be returning home that day, and want my home to stay cool (as it is summer time. The opposite would be true if it was winter). However, if I take a road trip to visit family members in North Dakota for a few days, I may want to have my thermostat doing different things.
Geo-Services work with any smart phone, through what is called location services. With location services enabled on your phone (this is the same technology you most likely have already used for GPS directions), I can set a radius around my home. A good idea for me is 50 miles. In most cases, if I am traveling 50 or more miles away from home, I will be gone overnight. In the thermostat example, I can set a rule to change the temperature setting on my thermostats any time I am over 50 miles from home (as detected through my alarm.com app on my smartphone). I may set a rule to have my thermostat re-set to 80 degrees, so that I can save money on my air conditioning use. When I am returning home, and the alarm.com app detects that I am back within 50 miles of home, it can turn the thermostat back to the way it was. This all happens without me having to stop the car, open my app, and change settings. It does it for me automatically.
Geo-services can do other things too. Maybe in addition to my thermostat adjusting, I would also like a light to come on to make it look like I'm home. This is an option too. Geo-fencing just means setting up your fence or radius around your home and then setting rule commands for those fences, telling your security system to do different things based on where you are. The caveat here is that it is all based on the location of your smart phone. If you forget your phone at home when you go out of town – then you’re out of luck! (Am I the only one who sometimes forgets their phone sitting on the kitchen counter and has to turn the car around to get it?)
This is free and easy set up if you already have interactive services from alarm.com. It will not increase your monthly monitoring cost to use and take advantage of this Geo-Services feature.
To learn how to set this up, call a WH Security representative at 763.477.3664.