I've played with this more and had very limited results until my last try. Usually, no matter the status of my iPhone, notification did not occur until I was actually in my garage. My programming was intended to turn on the garage lights while I was coming up my long driveway.
My recent success with this worked much better, the lights came on while I was coming up my driveway. What was different? I had the Google Maps APP open! The bad part, if this is what it takes, is to have to start this APP while driving during dark hours!