Is phone presence working for anyone?

Is phone presence reliably workings for anyone?
Is it working on a Google Pixel phone for anyone?
Is it working on a Google Pixel 3 phone for anyone?

I’ve tried everything I can think of to get it to work reliably. On rare occasions it does work.

thanks,

Since we upgraded to the v3 hub it works amazing. Not sure if it’s the new Hub our that I’m not running any custom code.

I have the 2015 v2 hub. Pixel 3 xl, android 10, android location to high accuracy, app has location permission, I have removed and reconfigured all of my location and devices, automations, etc. Removed cleared the app cache. Cleared the maps app cache. What else? Please report if it is working and what phone you have? I look at IDE and both old and new apps and it just isn’t updating.

Have you logged into another mobile device or tablet recently? If so, then that device took your phones place.

You can delete the phone and add it back. Just take a screen shot of the apps it was assigned to and reassign.

Works fine for me.

  • Pixel 2 phone (Android 10)
  • SmartThings V2 hub
  • Presence via the new app only

I don’t think I have logged in to another device lately. I do have both the classic and new app installed on the phone as I think the classic app right now gives me more insight to my phone presence problem. Is that a problem?

I removed my only phone from the classic app last night and verified it was gone on the IDE console. I then added it back by turning on phone presence and location in the new app and confirmed it was showing in IDE. I left home and then checked 5 minutes later and my phone not at home automation had not run. I then drove further and finally it ran and notified me that everyone was away. It was much longer than it should have taken. Upon returning home it disarmed my security not long after pulling in my driveway. I feel that when I do this again later today it won’t work at all.

On a side question, when I open the new app many of my devices show checking status and don’t update until I look at something and go back to the home screen. Also, sometimes the security monitor gets a spinning wheel and doesn’t update until I do something else and go back. It is quite annoying. Does anyone know how I fix this problem.

You said you had to drive farther than expected. Could it be that you didn’t wait for the presence timeout to occur? This timeout can be set anywhere from 2 to 10 minutes within the IDE. It’s been a long time but I seem to remember the default being 10 minutes. When I used ST presence I used a 2 minutes timeout. Now I use Life 360 (for several years now) and have no presence timeout.

My timeout is the default of 2 minutes. It was at least 10 minutes and I was 3 miles from home.

What is Life 360?

Presence Timeout * Get Presence Timeout

2 Minutes

The presence timeout was just a thought. Life 360 is an app for IOS and Android that tracks the individuals within your circle. It’s worked great for my bride and I. Some people don’t like it because you can see where everyone is at in the circle. For us, that’s a positive feature.

Wife and I both have Pixel 2 XL and presence is horribly unreliable. But, it seems the phone sleeps too much, despite having everything possible set to not do that.

For me, I always have my phone plugged into my car using the GPS. So presence always works for me. If I go on a shorter errand and forget to plug my phone in, then presence is horribly delayed. The alarm doesn’t get set for quite some time, and the alarm goes off when I get home.

My wife doesn’t have the car screen. So since she doesn’t plug in and use GPS, the alarm always takes forever to set, and the alarm always alarms when she returns home. Every, single time.

We’re both on the classic app

How do you uselife360 with smartthings?

Setup Life360 on your phones then go-to the marketplace in the classic app and follow the screenshots below. Once set up, each device within the Life360 circle will show up as a presence sensor in both the classic and V3 app. I used Life360 in classic for years without issue and finally moved our presence detection automations into the new V3 app this month. The new apps UI sucks because it’s beyond buggy but presence has been rock solid on an iPhone SE and Samsung Galaxy S7.

Life360 works flawlessly. I would recommend using Life360.

3 Likes

I suppose no one has ever got an answer from Samsung support on this problem? I have tried to get help from Samsung support on this and other issues and gave up months ago.

Very possibly a problem.

Presence is set up differently in the new app and is separate from presence in the Classic app. Having them both set to update presence is likely a problem.

Have you set permissions to allow the SmartThings app to access location “always”?

I’ve got a Pixel 2. Presence sensor with the classic app started getting wonky for me about 3 or so months ago. I use both apps so I set up the presence sensing in the new app and removed it in the classic app.

Works fine. But, if I had an alarm system, I don’t think I’d rely on it to arm and disarm.

I once removed the classic app but then got an alert I could not dismiss and had to reinstall the old app. I am not using the old app for presence now accept when I was trying to test. I always confirm the setup in ide after I make changes. I always confirm location permission is proper when I find it didn’t work. Life360 seems to be a workaround but is disappointing that native smartthings doesn’t work better.

I also find the presence is pretty flaky, works maybe 20% of the time. I’ve set an automation to happen when my phone gets close to my home and send a notification to my phone to say it’s been activated. I’ve exempted the Smartthings app from battery optimisation given GPS ‘all the time’ permission but it still only works occasionally! I’m pretty sure (for me at least) it’s related to Android and permissions as i’ve found if im in Google maps as i enter the area classed as home there is a uch higher chance of the presence being detected and automations run - however it’s still not 100%. Playing around in the SmartThings app when i get close to home also seems to raise the chance of this working.

I’m using ST based presence as I tried something similar with IFTTT previously but this works even less!

1 Like

FWIW, Life360 has been a solid choice for us if you’re looking for alternatives. I have almost no issues with Android. I can count on one hand issues within the last year.

Samsung announced wanting to use cars as presence sensors. Seems like they should get phones to work first.

1 Like