Voice Control the £20 way

No worries - It never fails to amaze me how many people don't think about security stuff like this ... so good to point it out in case



You can indeed do it direct from your iPhone .. and it seems to work well too (have been experimenting the last few days, but because of Covid I hardly ever go out to be able to test it ) ... You set it up as an "Automation" rather than a "Shortcut" which basically just allows you to attach an Event trigger to what you created as a "Shortcut" ... so it's as simple as 2 steps When "I arrive at <location>" Do "Get Contents or URL" (same setup as in the shortcuts we've talked about) or a When "I leave <location>" event.

It seems pretty reliable actually (have maybe seen it work 5 times at most though) so if it carries on, I'll use this instead of HA ... the only thing I've not yet figured (which is actually nice whilst testing it), is when the automation triggers, it gives you a notification on your phone ... nice whilst testing, but I don't want this long term as it'd be annoying. I'm sure you can turn it off though.

Something else I was thinking about actually too off the back of you talking about your "Mir:ror" stuff ... (which is a bit 'after the horse has bolted' given we've just fathomed the curl point out, but ..) you 'could', assuming you and your wife / any other house user have iOS Devices that have NFC chips - which I think started in the iPhone 6 - is use NFC tags / stickers instead combined with an iOS Shortcut and the Cortex API's. This would eliminate your need for a macbook connected up or any applescript.

It's really easy to setup an "Automation" in iOS Shortcuts that is invoked when you tap your phone next to a specific NFC tag ... and these are cheap (there's loads on Amazon / eBay, but no more than £1 each).

With this, you can stick an NFC sticker to a "thing" (including behind it, if it's thin and not metallic) and when you place your device near it, it can fire a Cortex API and therefore set something up, personalise it etc. Plus, the tags have a small amount of memory too to store info on that can be passed to the device that taps it (whoever that is) .. I've got some NFC tags waiting on my desk to play, but I'm planning on having one on my wireless charger next to my bedside, so that (given I'm always the last one in bed), by virtue of me always putting my phone on charge overnight, I can automatically tell Cortex to turn things off, check / warn me if Door lock states aren't secure etc

Lots of scope

magic ...

some Googling suggests our iPhone 6+ can do NFC, but so far I've failed to find it in Settings, to turn it on ...

more Googling suggests, though, that it can't read NFC tags, which seem to have come later ...

ISTR Googling told me Shortcuts worked only on iPhone 7 & later, and yet we have it working seemingly perfectly, so will not be leaving it at that !

in our Shortcuts, though, Automation doesn't appear - MyShortCuts is called Library on ours, and to the right of it there's only Gallery ...

more Googling, though, suggests there's Automation in the Home app ... which have yet to open & explore ... so all may not be lost !

Chris