Problem with location from phone for presence

[h0ckeysk8er (Bruce Pinsky)]

@jwsg

Getting location from phone to update presence is never particularly reliable but right now I cant get it to work at all.

None of the usual remedies for temporary issues are fixing it this time, such as forcing a location update by opening the google earth app, changing Home’s geolocation circle, disabling and re-enabling routines using presence, even removing and re-adding the device as a source of location

Trying to get location from a different device also doesnt work
Changing Home’s geolocation circle isnt producing the normal notification message
Moving the geolocation position away should simulate changing presence but this isnt having any effect

Together all this does seem that the location function isnt working right now

I gave up on the ST app as a presence sensor and instead starting using Alexa. It’s been very reliable. I posted about in the Presence in 2023 topic.

Presence in 2023, including multiple members and multiple locations

Alexa, which would be a third party of course, works great for this. My phone is set as the primary presence sensor for SmartThings with a radius slightly larger than my property. I’ve also got the Alexa app on the phone and a routine that triggers a SmartThings scene when I get about 20 miles away. I can confirm that Alexa solution works well for multiple household members as long as each member has a SEPARATE SmartThings account. While you can link separate Alexa accounts to the same ST account, one will always be the active and the other will timeout. So here is my setup: Separate Alexa accounts (but in the same household) on each phone (one Android and one iPhone) Separate ST accounts on each phone (but members of the same location) ST Virtual presence sensors for each member u…