Absence Simulator

Make your home look lived in while you are away. Absence Simulator watches what your lights, blinds, sockets and media devices actually do for 30 days. When you are away, it replays that behaviour — the real rhythm of your household, not a timer. WHY IT LOOKS REAL A timer switching the living room on at 19:00 every evening is a pattern anyone watching for a few days can read. This app replays a genuinely recorded day instead: - It picks one recorded day and reproduces it, rather than averaging several days into one implausible evening of constant activity. - It prefers a day with the same weekday, because Tuesdays look like Tuesdays. - Anything that happened around sunset is re-anchored to tonight's sunset. Around the equinoxes dusk shifts by nearly an hour across the thirty days the app remembers, so a light recorded at dusk three weeks ago still comes on at dusk tonight rather than an hour too early. - Every event is shifted by a few random minutes, so no two evenings are identical. - Before replaying, it puts your devices into the state that day started in — so a room that was already lit does not sit dark all evening. USEFUL FROM THE FIRST WEEK It does not wait for 30 days of history. If a weekday has not been recorded yet, it borrows the closest match — another weekday, or another weekend day — and tells you which. A slightly wrong pattern beats an unlit house. SWITCHING IT ON - Manually, with a start button that can run until a time you choose. The next 08:00 is offered by default, for an evening out. - By planning holidays in advance. Enter "1 July to 10 July" months ahead and it switches itself on and off. Times of day are optional; without them, whole days are covered. - From a Flow, including "start until a given date and time" — so it can hang off a geofence or a door lock in an Advanced Flow. Come home early and press stop, and it stays off for that holiday rather than switching itself back on a minute later. CHOOSING DEVICES Built for real installations. Filter several hundred devices by name, type or zone, and select whole types or whole zones in one click. Every supported type is listed, including ones you have none of, so you always know what the app can do. Devices you selected that were later deleted or reclassified are flagged rather than dropped silently. SEEING WHAT IT KNOWS A Data basis panel shows exactly what has been recorded: a calendar of the last 30 days, coverage per weekday, and the daily rhythm of your household. It also names any selected device that has recorded nothing at all, which is usually a device ticked by mistake. PRIVACY Everything stays on your Homey. The app operates no server and sends nothing anywhere. Records older than 30 days are deleted automatically. Removing the app removes its data. REQUIREMENTS Homey Pro with firmware 12.9.0 or newer. Homey Pro only — the app needs local device access. Available in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish. PLEASE NOTE This app is a deterrent aid, not a security or alarm system. It does not detect, prevent or report burglary, and it depends on your Homey, your devices and your power supply. Do not rely on it as your only precaution when leaving a property unattended, and do not reduce any other security measure or insurance cover because of it. Provided without warranty; see the licence for details. Copyright (c) 2026 Oliver Jenni, Umiken, Switzerland. All rights reserved. Support: ojenni@gmail.com