I’m having the same issue. I have 3 presence sensors that always show as “present” even when they’re miles away. I tried resetting the connection as the suggestions above and now they won’t re-connect to the hub even if they’re right beside it when I’m trying to pair them.
starting to wish I hadn’t bought the extra two!
I too had my Presence Sensor completely stop working on me (it was always saying away).
I first tried resetting the device (open it up; press+hold the button for 6 seconds, press it once and try to detect it) but it didn’t work and the hub didn’t detect anything.
I then realised I had done something stupid as the original presence sensor pairing was still there so I deleted it; after this I tried pairing again and it found it; and now is working.
So just in case you did the same as me, make sure you deleted the sensor from your SmartThings app before trying to re-pair it.
…Although now it is paired it’s now changed to say always Present 
- Battery on it is fine though (it does beep when you click on the beep button in the app too)
Just saw a post from Deano saying that SmartTiles was reporting correctly.
Very interesting…My Smart Tiles dashboard is indeed showing the presence detector away whilst Smart Things is reporting it is present???
Yup SmartTiles shows it as always away and SmartThings as always present but still functionally useless.
And the weekly “we are working on it and thank you for your patience” email from ST UK support is now wearing a bit thin
I had one presence sensor that started saying i was present when i wasn’t. I removed it from the hub, popped it open, pulled the battery, re inserted it, went to add device in the app and pressed the button on the little board. It then paired happily and has been fine since. Not sure what was up with it. Ive only had one issue since where it started bouncing away/present all night and kept turning lights on as part of a routine. I think that was down to RF interference from my wi-fi though.
Ya, your lucky those presence sensors have have worked for you this long. I had one work for about two months then it started exiting and returning, driving me mad, so I deleted it and took the battery out. I tried removing the device and resetting it, but after a while back to the madness of exiting or returning every 20 min.
This week my ST hub stopped logging my smartphone’s presence so now I have no presence sensor working with the ST system.
The phone app still works all my devices when I can figure out the crazy new app, which makes no sense.
My home automation work around is to manually arm & disarm ST from my smartphone.
HEY ST give us a presence sensor device that works or at least a button I can put inside my house to arm this darn thing.
Try the common sense stuff like new batteries; resetting the devices; and if all else fails contact ST support.
Is there magic trick to doing this ?
For example the samsung power outlet thing button has to be pushed in long enough for it to flash 3 times.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t say this anywhere in the supplied documentation - it just says ‘press’
Of course, you need the strength of Hercules to press in far enough, I used the tough plastic handle of a screwdriver to push the small button in - but once you figure it out its a doddle.
My presence pairs, but never gets past identifying the device - although it is set up (according to the IDE thing)
Trouble is, it never changes state - beeps away fine - so obviously it is sort of paired.
Hmm that button should only need a light touch to push?
I think its because the button is almost flush - and I have big hands/fingers…
Update just received from support:
Hey Mike
Over the last few days your Presence Tag issue has been a trending with multiple users, there seems to be a firmware issue where by the Tags don’t report the correct state or battery levels. There is currently a team of engineers working around the clock to find a solution. I will relay updates as soon as they come in. So please sit tight, and I will continue to pester the engineering department until we have a fix.
Thank you, for the ongoing patience.
Cheers,
Tom
After the update both my presence sensors showed away. So last night i removed and re paired both my presence sensors. It seemed to work but i now see that rthe presence sensors now show present at all times.
Yep exact same problem for me as well.
Glad it’s not just me. I’ve got 3 presence sensors (1 x iPhone, 1 x Android, 1 x Presence Sensor). The Android one seems to work, but the other 2 still claim to be ‘Present’.
Several weeks ago, I had similar issues. I re-paired the presence sensors, and they would work for a few days – then go bonkers several days later. I use a v2 ST hub. My “best fix” was to unplug the hub, and indeed remove the batteries to force a “hard reboot.” I haven’t had any errors/issues since I did the hard-reboot.
For the fob sensors, my assumption is that the Zigbee network periodically malfunctions/jams, and the sensors can’t properly communicate over the network. So, if their last-status was “home” – then their status gets stuck on “home.” Ditto if their last-status was “away.”
Removing ONLY the power supply, or ON the batteries won’t cause the ST hub to reboot. You have to remove BOTH power sources to force the reboot.
Afterwards, I learned that there is an option via the IDE website to somewhat “repair” the Zigbee network?..
Personally, I prefer the ability to hard-reboot electronic devices every now and then – just to make sure caches and such get properly-cleared/flushed.
The repair utility available through the IDE is for Zwave. Not Zigbee. Zigbee will automatically repair itself as long as you take the Coordinator off power for at least 15 minutes.
The SmartThings hub is a single plastic box, but it actually has connectors for three independent networks: A zwave network, a zigbee network, and connection to your ethernet. (The v2 hub also a Bluetooth connector, but it has not yet been activated.)
So you need to “heal” the address tables in the Z wave and Zigbee networks independently.
Taking your hub completely off of power will force a zigbee heal. It will also force your local hub to re-sync with your cloud account. However, it will not force a rebuild of the Z wave address tables. No matter how long it’s off power. That protocol requires that the utility be run. It’s just how Zwave works, whether SmartThings is part of the picture or not.
As far as a presence sensor getting stuck, there’s no question that if the fob loses connection it might be marked as “away” when it was actually still in the house. This could just be from local interference.
Always being marked as “present” though, is a completely different kind of problem. Normally, the fob checks in every 30 seconds, and there is a parameter which causes your account to mark it as away after it misses a certain number of check-in’s. So it should need to repeatedly check in in order to maintain its status of "present.
The fact that a number of people have fobs being marked as present when they are not, like mine, indicates more of a backend issue or an account level issue. Because it’s not like pretend check ins are being generated.
So definitely something weird is going on.
For those with the consistent presence sensor fault, the main diagnostic - apart from always present - is that it never gives a battery reading.
If you have a battery reading, then its probably okay, and any firmware fix is unlikely to cure existing present/non-present issues (usually caused by various radio/wifi and other environmental issues)
This sounds correct (my presence sensor isn’t given a battery reading). No idea why the phone presence sensors aren’t working though.
My presence sensor has suddenly stopped working two days ago and thinks I’m constantly “away”… I say stopped working… The key finder beep still works when I go in to it on SmartThings app, and it still reports a battery life, so I’m happy it’s fully connected.
Have ST done a sneaky firmware update on the hub over the last few days?
I’m loathed to go through support, as I don’t want o be told to remove all routines that use the presence sensor and re-connect everything.
Just when I thought ST had stabilised as the product I paid for three months ago, this happens.
This is a big problem for me at the moment - My wife has the sensor but it isnt working and hasn’t been for about 5 weeks now.
She cant use phone presence as she doesn’t have a phone able to do it. Thats why I brought a “product” that is meant to act as one… which doesn’t work.
Please ST can this be a priority now that oAuth is fixed as its a integral part of the system and just doesn’t work.