In some embodiments, a resident controller at a specified location performs a method including registering a plurality of mobile devices of a plurality of users and a device profile for a resident device to be controlled based on a location of the plurality of users, and establishing a user state for each of the plurality of users corresponding to their location. In some embodiments, the mobile devices can provide boundary-crossing signals when their location cross a boundary corresponding to the specified location causing the resident controller to update the user states based on the boundary-crossing signals and update a presence state of the specified location based on changes to the user states, where the device profile specifies a first action to be performed when the presence state transitions to a first presence value.