Feature Request - Multiple User Accounts

[JDRoberts]

@whosinaname

I just got into smartthings. The one thing I want to see coming and going is my wayward teenager. Unfortunately If I add his smart phone as a presence monitor he would have control over the whole system? I think we really need permissions and user control… That way he could do things like turn on lights etc, but not have ability to turn off system. why is this technology so close yet so far off…

That would indeed be helpful.

Meanwhile, there are several popular options for this kind of situation. It also comes up with housemates, Airbnb guests, and, of course, teenagers.

1. use life 360 instead of the SmartThings mobile app on the secondary user’s phone. This is a free service, works well, and has an official integration.

https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us/articles/202334244-Connecting-Life360-with-SmartThings

2. An alternative to Life360 is the IFTTT free presence. SmartThings has an IFT TT channel, so it can be combined with this as long as you set up a virtual present sensor. So this has a little more set up work than life 360 but some people like it, especially for housemate, because it doesn’t let you actually track the other person through the day, you just know when they’ve arrived home.

3. use the third-party app SmartTiles, very popular, which lets you customize exactly which devices will appear on its dashboard and limits their use, so they can’t be deleted by the secondary user. This doesn’t give you presence, but you can combine it with life 360, IFTTT presence, or the arrival sensor.

The primary designer’s original interest was to give his kids the ability to turn the lights on and off in their own bedroom without the ability to turn them off in the sibling’s bedroom next door! But it’s grown over time and now has many different features. It will run in just about any web browser, so could be used on any kind of phone or tablet.

www.smarttiles.click

3. another option is a $30 SmartThings arrival sensor, sold at the shop link on the site. This is a keychain fob which does nothing except indicate home or away. Is popular for little kids, dog walkers, etc. people who don’t necessarily have to have any device control over the house. It can be subject to Wi-Fi interference, though, so it works great for some people and not so great for others. You may just have to try it and see.

https://shop.smartthings.com/#!/products/samsung-smartthings-arrival-sensor

FAQ: The Many Ways of Detecting Presence (2020)

Presence, regardless of the device you use, is one of those features that works great for some people, not at all for other people, and is randomly flaky for still others. It’s very much affected by local conditions. So some people will find that phone presence works much better than the SmartThings-branded presence sensor. Other people will find the reverse. Still other people, myself included, find that they have to use a combination of two devices in order to get reliable presence indication. So if this feature tends to work differently for different people, where do you start? 1. Using a Smart Phone as a Presence Indicator [image] Well, since most people who have SmartThings have a smart phone, it’s worth starting there. This method has changed significantly in the change fro…

So you may need to solve the two parts of the problem separately: getting an arrival indication for the person and giving the person limited access to device control on your SmartThings account. But it can be done.