I’d like to use my wife’s iPhone as her presence for the system, but she thinks it runs down her battery. If she shuts it down will it still register when she comes and goes?
I run the app on my phone. It doesn’t need to “run in the background”, but you need to allow it Access your location. When the app isn’t running, ST is still notified of your location. iOS groups these calls together (queues up the apps and notifications) to reduce battery drain.
In short, I see no noticeable battery drain. If she already has other apps that update her location, like Find My iPhone, she will be fine. Of course, as an IT director, I also know the user mindset. They will think that the battery is draining faster only because they are looking more closely. 
Yep, perception is the problem. It wouldn’t have anything to do with using Facebook for the past 90 minutes. 
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If the phone has been upgraded to iOS 8 or better then you can see for sure:
Settings–>General–>Usage–>Battery Usage will show you how much each app has consumed over the last 24 hours and over the last 7 days.
For comparison, SmartThings doesn’t even show on my battery usage list, so less than 1%.
