Supposedly they are re-doing the custom automation creator in the new app. hopefully when that is complete it will be possible.
I had been using the Classic app with If this then that to automatically arm my Smart Home Monitor when the last person left and disarm it when the first person returned for years and I loved the feature. Samsung’s presence sensing was not reliable, so I had set it up with Life 360 to track departures and returns. It worked perfectly and I refused to move to the new Smartthings app for over 2 years because I kept being told that this feature had not been implemented in the new app YET. For other reasons, I was forced to move to the new app recently and to my surprise found that the new app still did not have that feature. When I contacted support, I was told that is was not going to be implemented because of security issue that could arise if my phone was lost or stolen. I was told that they could come to my house and get in. I think that reasoning is ridiculous. First, my SAMSUNG phone is locked, and someone would have to break Samsung’s security to even find out where I live. Second, I can track my phone’s location and erase it remotely, if it was lost or stolen. If Samsung wants to protect itself, make people sign a release to use this feature. This feature was a major reason I selected Smartthings in the beginning, plus its open nature to work with products and apps from other vendors. Ever since Samsung bought out Smartthings and started creating the new app, valuable features are being removed and the product is not as good. I just looked on If This Then That to see if I could set up a workaround and I discovered the integrations with Smartthings have been reduced. I have started looking at other home automation systems to regain this feature, but I have made a significant investment in Samsung sensors and I am not sure if I could reuse them on other systems. PLEASE tell me how we can get them to enable this functionality.
The post you’re referencing is from June 2018. You’ve been able to use presence to control STHM and locks in the new app now since the end of 2019
I can’t comment on the third party Life 360 integration that your using since I’m not using it.
However, as for SmartThings geolocation reliability, I have both, the built-in ‘Get your location from this phone’ feature in the new SmartThings app enabled, and the ‘Mobile Phone/Connect Now’ feature in the old SmartThings Classic app setup on the same Android SmartPhone. Both presence sensors for the same SmartPhone appear in the new SmartThings Connect app as separate presence sensors that I use in my Automations to toggle the STHM modes. So far, using both of them as presence sensors in my Automations seems to work 100% of the time when leaving, and 99% of the time when arriving to activate the Automations that toggle the STHM modes.
However, it is interesting to me that SmartThings support advised you that SmartPhone presence systems ‘are no longer going to be supported because of security issues that could arise if my phone was lost or stolen’. Wouldn’t that same logic apply to their own built-in geolocation features? Hello!
I sure hope that they don’t remove the built-in geolocation feature because of SmartPhone lost/stolen security concerns. Otherwise I guess I would have to then resort to using an Alexa geolocation routine to toggle a virtual switch that would trigger the various Automations for the STHM modes. In fact, I’m going to setup an Alexa arrival geolocation routine now using my existing virtual switch to see if I can get my I’m Back disarm Automation to 100% of the time when arriving home.