Presence Detector

[JDRoberts]

There are a lot of options with presence, and all of them are sensitive to local issues, meaning that they will work very well for some people but not for others. Or might work well at your home but not at your office.

I myself use a wheelchair and ran into what I call the “bus stop problem.” This was when my presence was detected while I was still on the bus. Since it can take the driver several minutes to get me unloaded, events were triggering much sooner than I wanted them to. I ended up using two devices for presence in order to narrow the detection area.

The presence FAQ should be of interest. It discusses multiple methods, including the two device protocol.

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…