This is not really an ST issue, but was hoping someone here might have some insight.
I use Android presence on my Wife’s and my phones to turn my ST alarm on/off when we leave and arrive. It works just fine. And has worked for sometime. It has been very reliable.
In a sense it is still very reliable. The problem is it has gotten delayed by a couple minutes. At the point where the alarm used to come on is now maybe a 1/2 mile further, if not more. When we would come home the alarm was usually disabled while we were a block or so from the house. Now we end up waiting at the garage door for it to go off. It always goes on or off, but just not timely.
I use a combination of ST android presence and Life360. I have found that one or the other always works.
By looking at the time the location was sent to the ST app or the Life360 app I can tell it is probably an Android issue. I just can’t figure out what it is. Both are phones are running Android 8.0. It has worked fine with that version until recently.
As an experiment I also tried IFTTT location. Same issue there. Also tried the new Samsung app and same result there.
I have checked battery optimization, battery saver, every other setting I can find. I looked at the location circles and no change there. I have researched android gps issues and can’t find anything there.
As I said it always works just not timely.
So just wondered if anyone here had any other ideas.
I recognize that my answer will sound completely off-the-wall-but I use the same combination of devices and I had an extremely similar problem recently…
By any chance, do you use a “personal cell tower“ (or whatever they’re called) from your cellular provider? If so, reboot it.
I spent almost 5 weeks pulling my hair out trying to figure out the issue, with a million messages all over community boards, multiple daily conversations with life 360, and just generally tons of additional research. These cell devices use all 3 technologies- cellular, WiFi, and satellite- and when it malfunctioned it caused havoc. Often I would sit in my house with my wife right next to me, staring at Google maps-and it would show her as being on the other side of town from where I was. Then, right in front of my eyes, her “blip” would fly across the map to my house, and trigger Life360 to turn on a bunch of lights- it was nuts.
Good luck
No I don’t use one of those. I wish it would be that easy.
I thought I would try turning the location to just gps only just to see if that made any difference. Well, it appears that ST and Life360 says location is not on when I do that. So it’s either high accuracy or nothing. Seems like a glitch there.
I don’t seem to have an issue with the location being off, it just is delayed in notifiying the apps.
I’ve been having this delay issue for several weeks as well. It’s really a pain when I arrive home and open the garage door, only to have the alarms sounding when they should have been turned off. I’m also running Android 8. I haven’t tried Life360, maybe I will give that a go. I would love to find a solution if anyone has any ideas.
I have a color bulb on the outside of my garage so I can tell the alarm isn’t off and hold off opening the door. If it’s green the alarm is off. If not, well…
There must have been some change in the Android location services that is causing the issue.
Been experimenting with this and figured something out. If I haven’t woke up or opened my phone for an hour or more, then the presence is delayed. And notifications are delayed. If I open my phone within a few minutes of leaving or arriving it works just like it’s supposed.
This would indicate there is some sort of battery saving going on that I can’t disable. The regular battery saver is disabled. My apps are set to not optimize battery, etc. So there is something imbedded in the Android system they aren’t telling us.
Just my observations. I will continue to research this.
Same issue very delayed presence sensing using my LG V20 over the last few weeks. Even if I arrive home with Google maps running (which reports my location accurately) my presence takes up to an hour to update. this causes my garage door to open unexpectedly. Given the fact navigation and other location dependent services seem to be working normally I wonder if it’s Samsung that broke this again…
Yeah, we’ve been having delayed ST presence sensing on the wife’s and my phone for the past week and a half … been fairly reliable before that, though …
Ours was working flawlessly for 6 months as well until recently. Two different carriers but both V20 phones. Thought it might be power outage related but reset everything on my network including the ST hub and still delayed by up to an hour sometimes.
No doubt it’s an android and or Samsung issue. I’ve been having the same problem in recent weeks but had not notice because my wife has an iPhone which has no issues and she always arrives before me if we are not arriving together. So for an iPhone works perfectly but for me it has been a big issue recently.
Smartthings pro user here. This issue nearly led my wife to forcing the “smart home be gone” phase. I thought it had to do with switching to a new phone (Note 8 to Note 9), however hers also has this delay. Its not phone brand based, but I cant determine if its an app issue or android issue. As all have mentioned GPS location is working fine with other apps (waze, google maps, etc). We nearly jump every-time we open the door and forget the alarm is still set. I hope they fix this soon.
I agree. It doesn’t appear to be phone based, but I’m not sure it isn’t an Android problem. I use both ST and LIFE360 presence and both come in at the same time. Or at least in the same minute. But like you they can be very late sometimes, and it seems most of the time now. I have a color bulb on the outside of my house. If it is off or red the alarm is still on. Our problem is sometimes we forget to look at it before opening the door.
New Android APP update pushed over the weekend for me. I updated and now Smartthings seems to be updating location status within 1 minute or so, compared to life360 presence. Still seems to be taking longer than it used to, as I could typically trust the “I’m back” scene to kick in at the same place driving down the road. Now I can still beat the scene to the door, but its close. Prior to this update it was taking a ‘LONG’ time, like 30 min to an hour. So maybe its better for all?
For me it didn’t work this weekend. I arrived home and had to manually execute my “I’m Back” routine. The delay was so bad I left the house about 10 to 15 minutes later, ran the “Goodbye” routine manually then about half hour later miles away from my house get a notification that my “I’m Back” routine was executed because my cellphone “arrived at home”.
There could also be a cellular network issue. I am on T-Mobile and have a SyncUp drive. Notification that I left/arrived home today had like a 9 minute delay. And this has nothing to do with Smartthings.
I have other apps with push notifications that work fine. So that would rule out a cellular issue. In addition when I’m home I’m on WiFi and they still don’t work.
I’m having similar issues on an android phone but I’m also having issues with Tado and it’s location presence. Makes me think it is some android location api issue.
… been fairly reliable before that, though …