Home & family says all family present when they are not

Apps & Clients
1

I am new to smartthings and I just set up the app and added my two other family members iphones as presence sensors, by inviting them having them install the app and create accounts. overall that work well, but the problems is when I am on the home screen of the app, under the Home & Family section it always says “all present” even when one or more of my other family members are not home.

if I tap on home & family it will accurately show who is home though, so the presence detection is working it just seems liek it isnt being accurately reported on the home screen. any way to fix this?

2

That same thing happens to me… but with a twist… I use life360 so I don’t have to expose my home configuration to my parents or kid…

3

actually, i was mistaken all my family members were not imported correctly. Although they showed up when i went into “things” from the home screen, it was only me that was showing up in the “Home & Family” Section. I assumed that because they were showing in the “Things” section they were present in the “Home & Family” section.

the solution:

  1. from the home screen i went into Home & Family
  2. then I clicked the gear icon in the upper right
  3. then I clicked on "Auto Import existing presence devices

Now they all show up correctly in the Home & Family section.

That wasnt super intuitive for me but I got it now.

1 Like
4

Actually now I am noticing one more related issue. My Wife’s phone is always showing up as “not present” even when she is present. This morning I just opened the smartthings app on her phone and now it seems good. So I am guessing she just closed the app. That brings up another important question… in order to use iphones as presence sensors, the smartthings app has to be left open and running in the background, correct?

5

App should not have to stay open.

Make sure Settings/Privacy/Location Services shows SmartThings as On or Always.
Also Settings/General/Background App Refresh has to be on with SmartThings On.

This is for iPhone of course :smile:

I had this same issue, mine was working but my wife’s was not. We had different IOS versions so it looked a little different. Weird part is both of ours did not have Background App Refresh on (to save battery) but mine still worked. I flipped it on with only SmartThings turned on and it’s been working fine ever since, turned mine on too just in case.

Hope this helps,
Scott

6

Thanks for the reply!

I just checked and both of those settings are on.

I also did a little more testing the past few days…

We have a zwave deadbolt which I have set in smartthings to unlock when one of us comes home and to send a push notification.

What is weird is that this works perfectly for me but for my wife, it will detect her presence now, and will send the alert, but when she walks up to the door it is still locked every time. So i think we have resolved the location issue but for some reason the lock will not unlock for her.

Any ideas? DO i need to set up the action her phone too or something?

7

my android has no issues but my bf’s iphone 6 always shows as home even when he elsewhere

8

I’m still really new to all of this and still fumbling myself. I would check the activity log to see if it sends the unlock command when she comes home. I wish there was a way to easily be able to see what other people have set up. I am sure if you post screen grabs of your unlock routine someone will be able to help. I might be able to help if I see what you have setup but some others are more advanced and may be better to help. You can always post a new topic or contact ST tech support.

Hope that helps,
Scott

9

@sush15 thats what my wife’s was doing before I set the Backgroup App Refresh, now both phones work fine.

10

Thanks for the reply.

I looked in the activity log and I don’t see the door unlock happening for her which is really weird.

Here is a screenshot of my door lock routine. Basically it should be unlocking when any of the three of us arrive home.

image.jpg1242×2208 182 KB

11

sorry, how did you set background app refresh on iphone?

12

Sush15
This should do it

13

To me it looks like you have everything setup right but again i’m new :smile:

I would post as a new topic with these screen caps and you should get a response. I have received an answer to all of my questions.

14

Having the same issue here since the update. Proximity sensors reporting incorrectly. It is reporting correctly for an iPhone 6 and one 6 plus, but not reporting correctly for another iPhone 6 and a Samsung Galaxy. These devices were all reporting correctly before the update.

15

I had the same issue with hub V2. Logging out and back in to the app seemed to correct the issue so far. I noticed it after adding new devices. So far, after adding any new devices, I found best practice is to completely log out of everything, even unlink your Echo if you are using it, then reconnect. Not ideal, but still in year 1 of it’s life.

16

Anyone have an end all be all solution for an Android? I know for Iphone you need background refresh and location turned on ALL the time.

My best friend watches my house when I’m away and I just end up disabiling any type of monitoring. It’s pointless. She has an android and it’s so hit or miss whether or not it knows she’s in the house. I can’t figure out what’s up with her phone. It took 3 days before SmartThings realized she wasn’t in the house any more and finally changed her phone to away.

It’s frustrating because I lose the ability to monitor activity while I’m out of town and she’s not at the house.

17

Basically any time the app updates and things aren’t working properly, log out and back in as a first step. Worked for me with the update today.