Location mode changes for no reason (September 2023)

General Discussion
1

For the last few weeks location mode is randomly changing to away mode and back.
It happens regadless of the fact that all or some members are at home.
I have a virtual switch for each member that shows when the member is at home. This is the only way i found to see each member presence status and history. MOST TIMES when the location mode changes randomly, NONE of the switches are changing and at least some are at home.
My rules hasn’t change for a long time and i went through them and couldn’t see any reason for this behavior.
For example, this morning my main water shut itself off since the system went to away mode. It was at 5 am while everyone were at home sleeping.

Any advise is appreciated

2

I would check the underlying device you’re using for presence detection.

For the last few weeks my Google Pixel 4a-5g phone has been randomly reporting incorrect location. I know it’s the phone for two reasons:

  1. I have the Nest app for my Nest Outdoor Cams set to use Home/Away Assistant to switch cameras on and off. When ST unexpectedly reports Away, so does Nest.

  2. I will see spurious reports in my Google Maps timeline that I was “moving” or “driving” at odd hours of the night.

  3. I don’t see reports that I’ve arrived at home when I should.

When the problem is that the phone hasn’t detected that I’ve arrived at home I can manually correct it by opening Google Maps and tapping on the dot showing my position. That seems to wake up the GPS or something.

I haven’t figured out the issue, I just know it’s not a SmartThings problem.

3

I also see issues with presense for both samsung and iphone. They are not always reporting.

This issue here is different.
As the example I gave for this morning.
All presense sensors reported presense. No one was comming in or going out at 5 am. Regardless of any changes in presense the system changed to away mode.

Ron

1 Like