Reminders that fire when your phone joins a network
Connecting to the home WiFi is the most reliable signal that you are home — more reliable than GPS, which struggles through a roof, and instant rather than a minute later.
Why a network beats a coordinate indoors
Satellite positioning needs a view of the sky. Inside a flat or an office it drifts, arrives late, or does not arrive at all — and in places where the signal is jammed it may never arrive. A network name is either there or it is not.
Both directions
Connecting is a trigger and so is disconnecting. When I connect to the office WiFi, remind me to book the meeting room, or when I leave the home network, remind me to take the keys.
How to set it up
- The Android app and the location permission. Without that permission Android does not show an app even the network's name.
- A place, with its networks. At home or at work, say “save this place as home” in the chat. The networks around you are remembered with the place, so the phone recognises it where GPS does not reach.
- The reminder. “When I get home, water the plants”, “when I leave home, take the keys”.
A plain “when I connect to Wi-Fi”, with no place, fires on any network — the chat warns you and suggests how to tie the reminder to the place you meant.
Networks as a signal for a place
A saved place can also carry the networks around it, so it is recognised indoors when GPS cannot. Those are stored as hashes — see what a hash does and does not hide.
FAQ
Does it need the location permission?
Android ties WiFi details to the location permission, so the app asks for it. What it does with it is the point: saving a place sends the networks around you once, only a hash of each is kept, and every check after that happens on the phone, without sending your position. When the phone joins the network a reminder is waiting for, it tells our server the network's name — and the server sends the reminder (to Telegram too).
Will it drain the battery?
Hardly. About once a minute the phone looks at which network it is on, inside the check it already runs for your other reminders; it does not scan continuously.