More Location Issues

Devices & Integrations
1

Once again, location issues abound. I haven’t contacted support this time.

Wife got a brand new Samsung (cough, Samsung) S6 Edge, and I’ve had to delete and re-add the device 3 times over the last 2 weeks, because ST just stops caring about its location (or so it seems).

I got home today with my month-old Nexus 5X, and ST did not pick up my location. There I am, sitting in front of my driveway, connected to my wifi network, waiting for the status change. So, I head over to Google Maps on my phone, then close it down, and back to the ST app. Guess who finally realized where I was?

Very seriously starting to research ditching ST for something that works. We were promised a lot of things with v2 (local app control, anyone? [don’t give me the “but there IS local control! We have Smart Lighting!” jive either]), and it’s been more of the same: unreliability.

Someone talk me off the ledge. Please.

2

I can confirm there are problems with hello home phrases or mode changes and mobile phone presence over the past couple days. Yesterday we left for a couple hours. Both our phone presence sensors updated status as left/away correctly at about the same time but the Goodbye phrase never fired and mode never changed to Away. Problem did not repeat today.

3

Are you using a separate account for each device? This may not be the problem for you, but for me it might have been.

I contacted support since presenced seemed to be 30-60 minutes off for me after the Android 2.07 releaes. They responded today with the following:

“Most often, these kinds of problems are caused by having multiple devices logged into your account. This will cause conflicting location information to be sent to SmartThings and create problems for mobile presence. Each device that you would like to have logged in should have its own account/email address for SmartThings. I’ve included some information below on account sharing and setting up mobile presence devices.”

I had been using the ST app on my Android phone and Android tablet with the same account. The explanation above made sense, so I removed ST from my tablet. When I got home today presence worked perfectly, and for the first time since I updated to 2.07.

One time getting it right does not yet make a trend, but it had not worked right one time for the past week or so. We’ll see how it goes.

2 Likes
4

Thanks for the reply and suggestion… Yeah, we use different accounts.

5

I’ve been using the key fob presence sensors for years. I have found them to be completely reliable once you have a robust zigbee mesh. It takes a few plug in zigbee devices to make a robust mesh, but if accurate presence detection is important then it’s well worth it.

1 Like
6

Thanks for that. I’ve been thinking about picking up a fob or two to toss in our vehicles, and 9 out of my 10 devices are Zigbee.

7

Just as a heads up, if they are battery powered they won’t make help make a robust mesh. Only plugin devices count.

1 Like
8

Yeah, most are bulbs, so there’s that.

Updating the original post: my wife’s phone started registering again on Christmas day, then magically stopped again yesterday - it’s now showing her as away (which is the worst of the two evils. @slagle: any ideas?

9

Does your wife keep wifi on on her phone?

10

So I submitted the geo log to support last week. No response, problem still exists. @slagle, could you look into this? I’ve even sent a message asking for a response… Nothing.