How is mobile presence still so broken?

[Jarrad_Lewis]

Last few years I’ve gotten used to having to delete my phone, give location permission again, and re-add my phone back to scenes for leaving and coming home, but NOW I’ve finally got to a point where nothing works anymore, my phone no longer shows “present” or “not present” in the IDE, but it’s still showing an accurate time for “last activity” whenever I DO come or go, it’s just not doing any of the actual PRESENCE portion of that or logging events as such. I’ve tried everything I can think of, and I’m out of ideas.

[NickA]

iOS or Android?

[Jarrad_Lewis]

My phone is a Pixel 6 Android, my wife’s is doing the exact same thing after updating her app and she’s iOS

[Drknght4]

Have you tried to install this edge driver : SmartThings. Add a little smartness to your things.

It allows you to creat a virtual Presence Sensor that acts as a presence sensor. It works perfect. I have many automations using it. My wife and I have iPhones and my son has the Z-flip . So this works on both iOS and android

[DieselDaisey]

Hi, Do you have a link for setting this up, thanks

[NickA]

[ST Edge] vEdge Creator: a virtual device generator for end users

Here is an Edge driver that will enable end-users to create virtual devices that run locally on-hub. UPDATED JULY 2022… Features: Supports the following virtual device types: A/C, air quality, alarm, battery, contact, door, fan, garage door, light (including RGBW), lock, momentary button, motion, panic, presence, refrigerator, shade, smoke, switch, temp/humidity, TV, switchlevel/dimmer, thermostat, video camera, water Create any number of virtual devices Easy and fast to use: No coding or CLI required Enables you to create 100% local automations with virtual devices See how many devices you’ve created of a given type (inventory) Devices include additional controls and features beyond what is available through CLI-created virtual devices Several virtual device types include a switch …

[Drknght4]

@DieselDaisey

Hi, Do you have a link for setting this up, thanks

I have it linked in my comment . (Blue line) or use what Nick posted. Same thing

[NickA]

Here is a sample of some of the routines I use with the virtual switches to keep the presence detection working

We use our garage door as our primary way of entering and exiting our house so I have a routine that turns on everyone’s virtual presence switch when it is closed forcing a verification it works well for me

[Jarrad_Lewis]

So I downloaded the edge drivers but haven’t had time to redo everything over the weekend, but suddenly out of nowhere 2 days ago presence for both phones started working again after being completely unresponsive for over a week, I didn’t change anything and updates are all turned off, this was something that triggered overnight randomly and decided it could see or phones and presence is tracking again. This has to be a hub issue because my wife and I have have Android and iOS but they both dropped out and started working at the same time. I’ll be moving to edge drivers once I have time to look in to it

[derousse (Mike DeRousse)]

Maybe I’m missing something, but how do you get the phone to toggle the vEdge Presence sensors?

[NickA]

Under, Menu, Gear Cog (Top Right Icon) make sure Get your location from this phone is set to on for all locations and your address is correct and you have a suitable radius selected.

Then the routines shown is this thread should work as you enter and exit your geolocation radius.

[derousse (Mike DeRousse)]

Ah, but that’s the problem. One of our phones is not consistently reporting presence when moving into and out of the geo-fence.

[JDRoberts]

@derousse

Ah, but that’s the problem. One of our phones is not consistently reporting presence when moving into and out of the geo-fence.

Is it the iOS or Android phone that’s not working? There are several popular third party solutions that might work better for you, but they differ by phone type.

Here’s a recent discussion:

Phone as Presence Sensor w/o Access to SmartThings App

I poked around for this, and I think I know the answer, but want to confirm. Now that Life360 integration will likely end with the end of Groovy, I’m looking at using my phone and my wife’s phone as presence sensors. She has the SmartThings app, so it probably shouldn’t be an issue. However, I have a stepson for which we track presence when he’s home from college. Is there some way to track his presence in SmartThings without giving him access to the SmartThings app? I don’t want him messing with my setup or turning things on when I don’t want them on (e.g., his AC upstairs). Can this be done? Thanks.

[derousse (Mike DeRousse)]

My wife and I both have Android Pixel devices. Mine tends to work more reliable with the presence sensing. Hers rarely works. I’ll check out these solutions. Thanks.

[JDRoberts]

@derousse

My wife and I both have Android Pixel devices. Mine tends to work more reliable with the presence sensing. Hers rarely works. I’ll check out these solutions. Thanks.

For Android, as long as you have a SmartThings/Aeotec hub, there’s an Edge Driver that can detect when the phone joins your WiFi at home, so that’s one option. There are also a couple of others discussed in that thread. It may take some trial and error to see which works best for you.