Shortcuts Automation -Location Precision

Tried setting up my first Shortcuts automation today, and discovered that apparently the location has a minimum precision of something like 300 feet. Is there any magic way to dial that in further? Or possibly use another app? What I would like it to do is launch a particular app when I get to my apartments laundry room. The laundry room is about 250 feet away in a separate building, but that’s not far enough for Shortcuts to differentiate. Any thoughts?

Wouldn’t your phone be locked, preventing an app from opening?

For more accuracy, you could trigger using an NFC tag or (using a compatible app) an iBeacon. But I think you would still need an unlocked phone to trigger an app t o open.

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Well, theoretically, I would unlock the phone when I got there. I would just like it to detect that it’s where it needs to be for that automation, and automatically pop open the relevant app.

I don’t know how they’d feel about me tagging a community space with an NFC sticker.

I remember that Omnifocus used to have a way to say, narrow, medium, wide, as far as a range for a location. I thought that the narrowest was smaller than what I am seeing here. So I was thinking, maybe it would be possible some other way.

I have a similar situation as the OP. Where can I get information on how to use iBeacons? I’ve tried a couple times in the last years, but I didn’t get anything useful. Do I really need an app for that? Pushcut has a trigger for beacons, would I just need to buy one then? What iBeacons do you suggest and where to buy them?

Depending on how similar, just remember, it isn’t going to open an app on your device while your device is locked. But, you could get a trigger notification and unlock your device.

I think all of these have been covered in the episode on iBeacons and the various discussions on them over the years on this forum.

https://talk.automators.fm/search?context=topic&context_id=14467&q=Ibeacon&skip_context=true

If you want to automate using an iBeacon as a trigger, that isn’t built into the OS or even a native app, so yes, you would require a third party app to utilise it in that way.

Seconding this— sometimes 300’ is too wide