iOS 8.4. Anybody?

Hi guys,

Anybody tried the new iOS 8.4 with our ST Mobile app? There is an interesting line in there… No sure whether it has any bearing on mobile presence.

“Fixes an issue that prevented GPS accessories from providing location data”

I updated to iOS 8.4 yesterday with ST Mobile app. Have not notice any difference.

Interesting catch on mobile presence. I previously had issues with presence detection from beginning of April through early June. ST support suggested a few things along the way but one thing they noted after looking through my logs was that they repeatedly saw “Warning Apple is Expiring Our Background Task”, this told them Apple was killing their background process that are looking for location. It was raised to there iOS team, who was aware of issues and actively working to resolve. Maybe iOS 8.4 fully resolves this. I can say that after working with ST support to resolve the issue my presence detection has been working 100% since June 10th

I haven’t tried SmartThings presence yet with iOS 8.4, but I wouldn’t count on it helping anything. The update seemed to make GPS worse. Waze can’t get a lock on my location at all, and I’ve seen other people reporting similar issues.

I am installing it on my iPad only and wait. My mobile presence works fine with ST on iOS 8.3 and I am certainly not going to take a chance till iOS 9. We need a guinea pig. :wink: Any volunteers? We will send you a dollar each!

Interesting, my Runtastic Bike App had an issue connecting to GPS this morning.

Im on iOS 8.4, presence worked just fine coming home from work last night and then again leaving this morning. I will report back if I see any issues

I upgraded my iPhone last night. No GPS problems with:

  • Waze
  • Google Maps
  • Spyglass
  • Apple Map (ok, no surprise…)

Smartthings is showing my location and geofence correctly, but I haven’t been out to check whether it is picking up arrivals and departures correctly.

The last part is what we are all interested in. Mobile presence detection. :slight_smile:

I read the “accessories” part and assumed it was for some device outside of the phone, such as a bluetooth accessory for the phone that needed access to the GPS, although, I can’t think of any specific device that would require that. If it said, specifically:

“Fixes an issue that prevented GPS from providing location data”

I would then be inclined to think it was something for the phone. I could be reading too much into it though. I’m on 8.4, and don’t notice any issues, however, I didn’t before. Mobile presence for me has been stable for awhile. That is, if my wife remembers to turn on her darn wifi :smile:

1 Like

Yea, I wonder if this is the case…

I know google maps location history doesn’t seem to work properly… hopefully this will fix it?

The GPS fix has nothing to do with apps that use the phone’s geopositioning.

Instead, it was to fix a bug where an independent device (not your phone) calculated your position and then sent that via Bluetooth to your phone/tablet.

8.3 introduced a bug where those positions were just ignored.

Here’s a typical GPS device that needed the fix:

http://gps.dualav.com/faq/ios-8-4-fixes-gps-issues/

These type of external GPS units are most commonly used by campers and boaters because of their improved accuracy over the phone systems:

http://www.waterwayguide.com/latest-news/news/5339/new-apple-ios-upgrade-fixes-gps-issues

But that particular bug fix won’t change anything that wasn’t trying to update positioning over bluetooth. Whether there’s anything else in 8.4 that improves geolocation, I don’t know.

I have been on 8.4 with no mobile presence issues for the past 2-3 days. It has been been one thing in ST which has been pretty solid in my case always.

Presence worked great on my wife’s iPhone up until some point this summer. The app seems to be just shitting the bed as a background process (similar to what was described above).

For example, if we’re out and I check my smartthings app (on Android), it says she is at home. If she opens her app, it often updates her presence to be away.

Everything is setup appropriately in her settings. Smartthings is allowed background, accurate location data, etc. We’ve tried removing and re-adding the phone as a presence sensor. No luck.