Phone presence wrong

[jkp]

FAQ: How to troubleshoot mobile phone presence issues

I don’t know if this has been covered already or if it has been all put in one place. But, as an IT Director, I feel the need to build an FAQ! Does your phone know where it is? This is how you test to find out! So, you have a fancy smart phone in your pocket/purse. Does that piece of metal and plastic truly know where it is? Are your locks and lights not coming on when you get home? Is your house going into away mode when you are still home? Here is a quick test to see if your phone can read a map! Set a Reminder for when you arrive at home (obviously make sure your phone knows where you live!). If you have issues with SmartThings thinking you are leaving home but you are still there, set a reminder for when you leave as well. Did it work? If you get home and your rem…

FAQ: The Many Ways of Detecting Presence (2020)

Presence, regardless of the device you use, is one of those features that works great for some people, not at all for other people, and is randomly flaky for still others. It’s very much affected by local conditions. So some people will find that phone presence works much better than the SmartThings-branded presence sensor. Other people will find the reverse. Still other people, myself included, find that they have to use a combination of two devices in order to get reliable presence indication. So if this feature tends to work differently for different people, where do you start? 1. Using a Smart Phone as a Presence Indicator [image] Well, since most people who have SmartThings have a smart phone, it’s worth starting there. This method has changed significantly in the change fro…