Geo Location with Life360

[trickyrick (Rick Johnson)]

I’ve tried different apps that integrate with SmartThings Hub and have always had a problem with accuracy or not working at all. I’m using Life360. It’s free to download. When used with IFTTT I can control lights lock and unlock my front door and even use my wife’s location to do the same thing. So if anybody is having trouble setting this up I recommend Life360 and IFTTT. my two cents anyway if anybody’s interested

[JDRoberts]

Life360 is very popular. It also has an official integration, so you don’t need to use IFTTT unless you want to. It will simply show up in your list of presence sensors.

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

The main reason people don’t use life 360 is if they want more privacy. Life360 generally makes a lot of sense for family members, but maybe not so much for housemates or if you have a dog walker or cleaning service.

In that case, there are other alternatives as well. These are all discussed in the presence FAQ (this is a clickable link)

FAQ: The Many Ways of Detecting Presence

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? 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. The following FAQ runs through the the usual troubleshooting…

[Michael_Edmonds (El Lobo)]

I have been trying multiple ways to get Presence working. The generic Smartthings Phone Presence never seemed to update for my phone and never connected even once on my wife’s Xiaomi. So then I tried the webCoRE presence sensor. After an afternoon of playing it has connected and IDE shows all the places I have defined in webCoRE and shows me in my current location. But I am not sure how “fast” it will respond or if my Version 9 android will keep killing the webCoRE app so we will see (I turned off all the battery optimization).

So I also figured I would try Life360. Downloaded the app, set up some places and then set up the SmartApp in the Classic ST app, got thru the credential screen BUT it does not let me add any locations from life360…the option is greyed out and it says “you can’t currently add this”.

Any thoughts on what I am doing wrong…or did I miss a whole thread that says this is no longer supported?

Thanks.

[jkp]

@Michael_Edmonds

So I also figured I would try Life360. Downloaded the app, set up some places and then set up the SmartApp in the Classic ST app

How did you set up the SmartApp in the Classic app… did you install through Marketplace or IDE using custom code?

[Michael_Edmonds (El Lobo)]

I tried to install thru Marketplace in the ST Classic app.

[Michael_Edmonds (El Lobo)]

I get:

and then

Do I need to install a DH first? I did just find something about a replacement DH but have not got thru the whole thread yet.

[jkp]

I have always used the marketplace version. go to Automation > SmartApps > Life360 (Connect) and go through and authenticate to Life360 again.

[Michael_Edmonds (El Lobo)]

Did that multiple times including changing the PW to life360…Force Closing both apps and clearing Cache on both. No luck

[jkp]

Hopefully someone will come along and help you get it working. Also, open a ticket with ST support

[Michael_Edmonds (El Lobo)]

Well it turns out the only way to get it to work is to set up the Life360 Places while signed in to a browser. Setting them up in the mobile browser does not work. Found an old post on Reddit.

And now of course Life360 want more money to actually set up more than 2 locations.

[mebejedi (Eric)]

It’s worth it. I have a piston that tells me when a family member has arrived at or left a location, and another piston that gives me a readout of everyone’s location when I ask.

[Bryan_Mack]

@Michael_Edmonds

Well it turns out the only way to get it to work is to set up the Life360 Places while signed in to a browser. Setting them up in the mobile browser does not work. Found an old post on Reddit.

And now of course Life360 want more money to actually set up more than 2 locations.

Thanks, creating the location on a PC browser worked for me, was having the same issue as you