RELIABLE presence detection from your android phone

I’m going to keep this simple: I had a problem: I had a kindle fire phone, and it was incompatible with smartthings presence sensing. So i found a custom device type here:

use the custom device type in this thread and you end up with a virtual presence sensor tied to a virtual switch. When the switch is toggled, the presence sensor toggles also. So what’s that good for?

There are two ways i know of to have that switch toggled when you arrive or leave home (or other places).
Way 1: I created two recipes on IFTTT (if this then that). The android channel is the trigger. Have it activate in recipe 1 when you enter your specific wifi. Recipe 2 will activate when you leave it. The second half of the recipe is the smartthings channel. I have it turn on that virtual switch i created in recipe 1 and turn it off in recipe 2.

And there you have it: perfect presence detection.

However… there’s a second way to trigger that works faster. If you have tasker installed you can control the virtual switch through a sharptools shortcut. Create the exact same trigger scenario (on when wifi connects, off when you leave) and there you go!

3 Likes