Both me (Android) and my wife (iPhone) use our phones are presence sensors with the new ST app. About a week ago, both presence sensors stopped working. I’ve had cases where one or the other sensors stop working but not both. We’ve tried logging out of the ST app and logging back in but it didn’t work. When I login to the ST ide on my desktop, it shows I don’t have a hub. It does show my home location but when I click on it, the page is no available. All my devices are showing and I’m able to control my ST devices from the app. Any ideas on how to troubleshoot this?
The wife and I both have Samsung Android phones… we found that we simply can’t rely on just the phones itself as a presence sensor… ultimately something happens and it fails. It could be so many things like an app on the phone causing the issue, a OS update on the phone itself, etc, etc, etc… I know you asked about troubleshooting but I got tired myself of constantly troubleshooting these problems over and over so now I use the free version of Life360 on our phone as the presence sensor and our ST automated-life has been so much better since!!! I also combine both the SmartPhone and Life360 on each phone. Been 6 months now and not a single issue has occurred since. Here is a video that I ran into that got me started on Life360… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOLBduUiWV4&t=217s
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Thomas, thanks for the resonse. Two questions,
- Do you have to install the full Life360 app or just ST smartapp?
- Life360 is a location tracking app so is that what it does in ST? I just want presence sensor, not location tracking.
Thanks again
Steve,
I would recommend you watch the video I linked which shows the full setup… but to answer your questions…
- Yes, you need to install the life360 app on your phone and there is a life360 app for Smartthings already in the SmartApp automations
- True, Life360 is a location tracking app… but with the ST automation App it works as a presence sensor.
I should note a couple of things… I’m still using the Classic ST app. Don’t know if there’s issue with this in the New ST app. Shouldn’t but I really don’t know. While I love this Life360 App (again, using the FREE version)… it’s been flawless linked as a presence sensor with my SmartThing hub (v2). Thinking of the pro’s and con’s…
Pro’s -
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It really works well and dependable. I have ST setup so that (with Webcore) that when the wife and I are not home… do all kinds of automation and also do all kinds of automation if one of us comes home.
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Some times my Inlaws comes and visits us for a month or two… I had them add Life360 so that when the wife and I go to work… the system knows we have guests and doesn’t run automations that turns everything off and sets the alarm. But also if we all go out together (like going out to dinner or shopping) the automation will kick on automatically like turning on/off lights, alarms, etc.
Cons…
- With Life360… if I set the circle to track my movement… my wife knows where I am ALL THE TIME! Since though I’m admin of the Life360 circle, I can turn off advertising my location and ST will still work as a presence sensor… but the wife will know I turned off tracking and that raises questions!
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Here is a sample “we left the house” Webcore script I wrote using both our phones and life360 to detect when the wife and I leave the house. I’m by no means a programmer so this is a very simple script but it shows that I’m using both the phone and life360 as presence sensors to trigger automation .
From the script above… Tom and Miranda are the actual Life360 Presence sensors. From the script when the system detects from both sets of presence sensors we left the house the script will automatically run another script (webCORE Goodbye Routine) which is more detailed about all the things I want ST to do… turn off lights, TV’s, turn on alarm, etc… Then I have the script push and text me a message that this happened. This way, as I’m driving away my car which can receive text messages alerts me that this happened and I don’t have to worry if the alarm was set or not. I suppose I could just use Life360 but I don’t… I use both systems… kinda like a fail safe I guess.
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I’m using the new ST app and don’t see the Life360 smartapp. From reading online, some folks have been able to get it by installing the classic app, adding the Life360 smartapp there and then it appears in the new app.
To me, the con you listed is my biggest drawback. I really don’t want us to be sharing location all the time…seems a bit much.
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I have similar “automations” setup in the new ST app. Any reason you chose webcore over automations?
Yup… that is the downside. But remember, you can turn off sharing for yourself. Though Life360 and its shared locations has actually came in hand a couple of times. The wife’s car broken down on a country road and Life360 helped me reach her quickly. And sometimes it’s nice to know when the wife will return home from shopping so I can look busy!
I’ve been moving all my automation to Webcore mainly because I want to learn it better and create somoe more complex automation tasks that I can’t get done with existing SmartApps. I think I got a long way to go but Webcore is really powerful but still easy enough for the novice.
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If I turn off sharing for myself, will the presence sensor still work?
Yes I believe so. That is my understanding though to be honest I never actually tested that ability.