Poll: Mobile Phone as a Presence Device with SmartThings

Mobile Devcie: iPhone 5S
Mobile Device OS: 8.4
Geo-Fence Accuracy: Low
Does your phone connect to your WiFi: Yes
SmartThings App Version:Mobile Device: 2.0

Mobile Device: Galazy S5
Mobile device OS version: 5.0
If Android: GPS level: (high accuracy vs. battery saving) High accuracy
Level of Geo-Fence accuracy: (High, Medium, Low) High
Does your phone connect to your wi-fi: Yes
SmartThings App Version: 1.7.6 Great, 2.0.2 terrible

I have 2.0.2, my wife has 1.7.6. One works, one doesn’t. Both used to work perfect (nearly 100%)

Mobile Device: iPhone 6+
Mobile device OS version: iOS 8.4.0
If Android: GPS level: (high accuracy vs. battery saving)
Level of Geo-Fence accuracy: (High, Medium, Low) high
Does your phone connect to your wi-fi: yes
SmartThings App Version: 2.0.1

It’s only failed for me a couple of times - maybe twice - since I set up in early November last year.

Mobile Device: ZenFone 2 and HTC One
Mobile device OS version: Android 5.0
If Android: GPS level: high accuracy
Level of Geo-Fence accuracy: High
Does your phone connect to your wi-fi: Yes (limited range outside the house)
SmartThings App Version: 1.7.6 and v1 Hub

Porch light is usually on when I pull up to the house, although sometimes I see it turn on as I pull into the driveway.

Mobile Presence has worked flawlessly for me.

Mobile Device: iPhone 6
Mobile device OS version: iOS 8.4.1
Does your phone connect to your wi-fi: Yes (*note presences triggers good 5min before I event get home/ connected to wifi)
SmartThings App Version: 2.0.1

A few things to note. I live in a high rise condo building in a small city. I live on the waterfront so I depart/return home daily multiple different ways (ferry boat, bus, subway, walking and sometimes my car or uber). In all cases presence detects at almost exactly the same spot each time. All modes of departing/returning have same 100% success rate.

Also I will mention I did have a few hiccups with presence detection in May 2015 (before may it worked for +1year no problem), worked with ST support and since then its has been triggering 4+ times a day and never missed a beat. So all iOS and ST app updates since then have had no impact.

Mobile presence has worked really well but only up until the IOS update. Now I don’t really trust it. We both left for work at 8am this morning and my wife is still “home” even tho her phone is at work with her and i only “left” at 3:53 pm.

Wife phone is iphone 5s mine is iphone 6 with latest firmware.

Generally works well. About 5-10% of the time we have issues. For example, yesterday into today, my wife is still listed as being at home even though she is at work. I just sent her a message to reboot her phone and relaunch ST. That usually corrects the issue.

Mobile Device: iPhone 6
Mobile device OS version: 8.4.1
Does your phone connect to your wi-fi: Yes
SmartThings App Version: 2.01

Same thing happened to my wife yesterday. Rebooting may not be required. A force kill and reopen usually fixes it. @brianlees

It used to be very reliable, then a few months ago it stopped working consistently for me and my wife.

Mobile Device: iphone 6
Mobile device OS version: 8.4.1
Level of Geo-Fence accuracy: High
Does your phone connect to your wi-fi: Yes
SmartThings App Version: 2.0.1

Geo-fence is accurate once I open the app (it’s always running on my phone), but it nearly never senses we’re home now until I actually switch to the SmartThings app – then it recognizes my location instantly and very accurately. I got my phone replaced recently (same model) and it’s still not any better.

Have you checked your location services settings to make sure smartthings is set to ‘always’ instead of ‘while using the app’, @roofone?

Thanks. I have and it’s “always,” though you’re right: it behaves exactly like I have it set to “while using the app.”

I’ve had maybe 3 glitches with both an iPhone 5 and 6+ over the last two years. I’d like to compare the housing density with the level of trouble people have. I live in the suburbs on a street with few moves. If someone was in an area with more people moving more often that could really screw up wi-fi based location as the access points would always be getting moved around.

Mobile Device: iPhone 6
Mobile device OS version: 8.4.1
Does your phone connect to your wi-fi: yes
SmartThings App Version:2.0.1

I find that if I don’t have wifi enabled it doesn’t work well at all. Other than that it works very well for my wifi and I

@Ben nice to see you taking on my POLL idea :wink: x

1 Like

Well, at least I know it’s not just my household that has reliability issues. After 80 votes, 77% find it problematic and more find it completely unreliable than have it working properly. I hope ST uses this data and rethinks how geofencing should be done : (hint, hint @alex). Mobile presence is one of the things keeping me from relying on ST as my alarm and signing up for Scout monitoring.

@schettj - A little bit of Flunitrazepam can go a long way in avoiding that unwanted awkwardness. Just be sure you choose an implant site not readily visible, even in a mirror
 :alien: :laughing:

Mobile Device: iPhone 6, iPhone 6, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5
Mobile device OS version: 8.x
If Android: GPS level: (high accuracy vs. battery saving)
Level of Geo-Fence accuracy: (High, Medium, Low)
Does your phone connect to your wi-fi: Yes (Mostly)
SmartThings App Version: (Auto Update is turned on)

When it works, it works great.

I occasionally have the issue where people will come and go at random when they aren’t leaving the house.

The worst problem is that sometimes phones will go a while without changing status. Seems like running the app on that phone will sometimes fix it for a while, but I’m the only one that regularly runs the app. I’ve contacted support and when it gets buggy, they usually recommend I uninstall the app and reinstall on the phone that is flaking out, but if that is not my device, it is difficult to do this. (This is not a good solution, especially since it can take several days before I realize that something is wrong, meanwhile, my thermostat and lights are staying set to home mode the whole time.)

Also, my daughter’s school has pretty bad cell reception for my phone, but they have WiFi. So, I tend to connect to it. But it is severely restricted, so if I want to (for example) use facebook or instagram, I have to turn WiFi off. And when I do that, even though I am a mile away from my house, SmartThings says I am home. Every. Time. I know, WiFi increases accuracy, cell tower triangulation when I’m in my house, etc, etc, but the default should be I’m NOT home, if they aren’t sure, not that I AM home. Especially given that I would like to have things happen when I get home, but can’t because the false positives (for example) open my garage door when I’m not home. Both are annoying (not detecting I’m home when I am, and detecting I’m home when I’m not), but the former, I can manually intervene, the latter opens my house when I’m not there.

At least make it an option.

1 Like

awful late and often-never worked with Samsung S3, even when GPS was turned on with high-accuracy.

Mobile Device: Samsung-S3
Mobile device OS version: 4.4.2?
If Android: GPS level: (high accuracy vs. battery saving): HIGH
Level of Geo-Fence accuracy: (High, Medium, Low): MED when it works - good enough if it reports at all.
Does your phone connect to your wi-fi: ALWAYS
SmartThings App Version: 1.4.x? ABANDONED PHONE PRESENCE AND WENT TO REDUNDANT KEYFOBS THAT EAT BATTERIES LIKE THEY ARE PEZ CANDIES. WANT KEYFOBS IN THE CAR THAT PLUG-IN.

I dunno why the Hub (especially the 2.0) can’t ping / arp for mobile devices. It seems like such a no brainer

3 Likes

Well this is my first experience since V2 just arrived today. I set up 2.0 app on old GS4 ( can only find 1.75 APK to sideload on Firephones ) set home location and went around adding all my devices. This is an old phone with no SIM card so only on WiFi to set up ST. So far I have gotten 3 notifications that my android has left.
I guess that answers any question I had about using geo-fencing with any of our phones.