Debounce Settings (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth)

Summary

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth sensors let you choose how they confirm a change. Debouncing waits and double-checks before alerting — good for a signal that flickers. No Debouncing alerts the moment it's first noticed — good for a reliable sensor like a gate beacon.

Details

Alert delay

With Debouncing on, you set an alert delay: how many seconds from the network or beacon last being seen to the alert reaching you (default: 90). This one number covers two things: the time Sentinel Circle needs to be sure the change is real, plus the time it then waits to double-check.

A radio can only tell you that a signal is no longer there — never which end moved. Sentinel Circle's wording sticks to what it can actually see.

For Bluetooth, being sure takes about a minute, so with the default 90-second delay there's about 30 seconds left for double-checking. For Wi-Fi, being sure only takes about 15 seconds, leaving about 75 seconds to double-check.

Once Sentinel Circle is confident something changed — say, the beacon is really gone — it spends the rest of the alert delay double-checking. If the change holds, the alert fires. If things go back to normal at any point during that time, nothing is sent.

For example: a Bluetooth beacon leaves home. Sentinel Circle takes about a minute to be sure it's really gone, then double-checks for the remaining 30 seconds. About 90 seconds after the beacon left, the alert fires. But if the beacon comes back during that double-checking time, the process starts over and no alert is sent.

No Debouncing mode

With No Debouncing on, there's no delay setting to configure — Sentinel Circle alerts as soon as it can trust the reading. For Bluetooth that's still about a minute after the beacon actually leaves, because Sentinel Circle needs that long to be sure it's really gone and not just a brief dropout. Best for a beacon or sensor that reliably appears and disappears without noise.

Tip: Email and Notification sensors alert on the event itself — they don't have a debounce setting. Use Debouncing for home Wi-Fi or a Bluetooth signal that's a bit unreliable; use No Debouncing for a gate beacon or car sensor where you want an instant response.