I remember looking into this a few years ago and setting up phones in the old Groovy IDE. My wife and I now have new iPhones and it’s not clear in any of the web searches whether the phones can be used for presence detection and to change (for example) the security mode on the Home Monitor. Many of the instructions out there are from before Groovy was shut down. Is there a reliable set-up video or instructions?
Paul
It’s pretty simple… Open the app on your phone. Go to Menu (lower right), then the cog (upper right). Click “Get your location from this phone.” You will probably need to send an invitation to add your wife’s phone, she’ll need her own account (I think). You do this from the Home display on the app. Click + (top, right side), “Invite Member”.
That should do it.
It’s much simpler to set up your phone as a presence sensor than in the past. First, you need to enable the ST app to use location information from your phone. Menu->Gear menu is where you will find that option.
Once you enable location usage for your location(s), you can now create Routines that utilize the Member location. For example, you can specify when a single/multiple Member(s) leaves/arrives or when all Members leave/arrive.
And then you can specify actions such as arming/disarming STHM or locking/unlocking a door.
Ideally, each phone user will have their own ST account. The primary owner can invite other users to be Members of a Location(s).
It’s also important to note that when used as a trigger in a Routine, the Routine is only activated on a state change such as arriving or leaving. If you want to use presence to control if/when something occurs if people are present/gone, you must set the Member location as a precondition.
Some folks report that ST location tracking is not consistently reliable. In that case, they use other apps for location tracking such as Alexa in conjunction with virtual ST presence sensors to proxy the Alexa presence into ST.
It’s true that iPhone presence detection is somewhat unreliable. Sometimes it fixes itself within a day or two; other times you need to force a fix by turning off “Get my location from this phone.”, then turn it back on. One you’ve done this, you’ll need to repair any routines that use that phone as a presence sensor…
Another one of the reasons I use virtual presence sensors (vs Member Location) in my Routines so that the underlying tracking mechanism is separate from its representation in Routines. If something goes wonky with whatever method I’m using as my underlying location tracking, I only have to change two Routines; the one that turns the virtual sensor to “I’m Home” and the one that turns virtual sensor to “I’ve Left”. All my other Routines rely on the virtual presence sensors to trigger actions such as unlocking a door, turning on some lights, etc, etc.
Thanks for all the quick responses. I have set it up and will give it a try. I am guessing that to test it, the phone has to actually be removed from the property rather than turned off.
That is correct… you need to leave the geolocation set for your hub. On the dashboard, tap on the 3 dots and select Location settings and ensure you set your address in the second field.
I found the geolocation reliance to be spotty so I use wifi SSID connection instead. I set it up in two apps that are on the phone. I find it more reliable and noticeably quicker. All the features that can use geolocation also use wifi SSID connection so it is not limiting.
I use a Galaxy S25 phone so I do not know if this feature is available in an iPhone.
If you are using Tasker as one of the apps - it is not available on iOS
The SSung Modes and Routines app is the trigger. I do not use Tasker and I do not know if there is an iPhone equivalent.
