Android pressence & automation in smartthings app

Hi there,

I’m having issues with the android presence sensor, it works extremely unreliable - sometimes it works alright but then it stops working for a full week and I’m unsure what’s going on.
I’ve made sure every permission is granted to the smartthings app, what could be the issue and how do I solve it?

Another thing is that I have automations created in the Smartthings app that for example
If motion is detected and time is between 4-6am turn on lights
and then another automation that turns off these lights at 6am
Both with a notification thingy so I can see when they turn on and turn off…

None of these work either, matter of fact - most of my automations created within the smartthings app doesn’t work at all or not reliable meaning sometimes they work as intended and sometimes not…

This is really getting the best of me because its quite useless having a hub that doesn’t work even with simple tasks like this…

Can someone please point me in the right direction of what to do or if someone already knows whats causing this?

If I made the autmations in webcore they work 100% of the time, except the presence thing but since webcore is going out of the window soon I’m trying to create the in the smartthings app.

Thank you in advance!

The impression I get is that the presence sensor is a bit lazy. If it detects you are entering or leaving a geofence it will report that to the backend, but it doesn’t seem to check whether the detection was missed or the communication failed.

Presence detection has always been spotty for some, so that can be an ongoing issue.

But the other two routines you mentioned are very simple and should run without issue. Can you post screenshots of those. Turning on a light during a certain time or turn off a light at a particular time ought to run without issue.

You could also look at SharpTools Rule Engine, which won’t deprecate. It remains in the cloud but is generally very reliable.

2 Likes

Hi, thanks alot for you time replying to my questions, below are some of my automations which runs sporadically even when the conditions are false - they should run but only does it 1/8th of a time.
One is powering on smart plugs between 4-6am when temperature is below 22.3 degrees in the morning. It’s always around 20 degrees in the morning, its in the start of the winter - they just dont plug on.
If I make the exact same automation in webcore it always runs and turns off exactly when and how I tell it to.

Another question I have regarding mode changes, I have 7 modes and 7 away modes, how do I change between them with automations? they are based on presence and time… its just horrible that I cant get the presence to work, are there any alternatives that always work?

Best regards,





The first one looks like it’s just turning on a light upon motion with a color temperature and dim level, and then turning off after 10 minutes. That doesn’t run reliably? I’d try implementing settings in steps to see if something causes it to fail. For example, just turn the light on based on motion. Does that work reliably?

The mode can be change automatically in routines. There is a pick for Change this location’s mode in the wizard.

As for presence alternatives, I use TMLeaf’s Life360 implementation as a backup. There is a post here by TMLeafs that discusses it. However, some new users have discussed a problem related to L360’s new website. Can’t remember the details as I write this, but there is a thread discussing it.

Also, the location capability in IFTTT works well for me. I use it to adjust thermostats in a way that ST cannot.