Presence Sensor Questions w/ST app, experts weigh in?

[hixz (Derek)]

Without having the time to do extensive testing I wanted to make a topic to get some guidance from any experts. So currently I know through searching that for a phone to be a presence sensor, you must have a login, the ST app. People with kids that don’t want to give them access use Life360, okay, understood.

BUT! Does the app need to be installed on the phone for the presence sensor to work? I’m pretty sure I’ve had my ST app closed on my phone but it still detects me and opens my garage. What’s the difference between having the app closed and deleting the app off my phone? If so… couldn’t I create a login for my 11 year old daughter, download the ST app, add it as a mobile presence sensor, then remove the app after I’m done?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, I’ll try to test and update this topic as well. Just not at the house right now.

[JDRoberts]

Just closing the app doesn’t shut it down altogether. It will continue to run in the background on some phones. Even if it’s been removed in the background, the next time you open the mobile app it will update your location.

If you remove the mobile app from the phone all together, smartthings won’t have anyway to update the phone’s location.

So there’s a very big difference.

There are alternate ways of providing presence if you don’t want to use the SmartThings mobile app. As you mentioned, life 360 is very popular and has an official integration.

You could also use IFTTT presence or even Wi-Fi detection. See:

FAQ: The Many Ways of Detecting Presence

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? 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. The following FAQ runs through the the usual troubleshooting…

[bamarayne (Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)]

I use life 360 on all of my phones. Only my wife and I have the ST mobile app installed. Presence works great for me.