I have another thread going concerning the integration between 1 ST account, in 2 location, and 1 Alexa account.
I’m learning that it’s just not gonna do what I need so I’m looking for a workaround.
That being said. Apparently the Smartthings arrival sensor has been discontinued. Has anybody found a small, keychain type arrival sensor to trigger scenes in ST?
Thanks
I managed to get 2 cheap on eBay last year, but not seen any replacements. People are using their phones.
If you use iOS devices, IBeacons can be very good for this. I use them at my own house because I want detection to occur in a very specific range, basically the length of my wheelchair ramp to the front door. But the method doesn’t work as well with android phones.
Quite a few people now use recognizing that a specific phone (android or iPhone) has connected to the home’s Wi-Fi. There are various options for this, depending on the specific brand and model of your router and whether you have a SmartThings/aeotec hub or not. But this can you give quite a long range, so it may detect you half a block away from home. That works for some people, but not for others. And of course, you may have a circumstance like a dog walker or an Airbnb guest where you don’t want them to have to do anything with their phone, or perhaps they don’t even have a smart phone.
In other cases, if you don’t need the detection to unlock the smart lock, you can use the unlocking of the smart lock with a specific code to then trigger other events. Again that works for some use cases, but not others.
Thanks for the info.
Currently we are using our phones but due to unique circumstances, I’m looking for other options.
We have ST at home linked with our Alexa account. We also have a shared vacation home with its own Alexa account but the ST hub is part of my home system.
Because we cannot get Alexa to work in both places at the same time due to it being linked with my home ST account we’re being told we need a different ST account at the vacation home too.
In order for our phones to be used as presence sensors to trigger scenes, we would need to remember to log in and out of whichever ST is necessary for our location.
Clearly as humans we will forget and not to mention, we use smart home systems to make life easier and this only makes it more cumbersome.
So if we had devices on our keychains, we Cupid use as arrival sensors, this would allow us to operate as normal and not have to log in and out.
Hope that makes sense.
Thanks
Can you share which ibeacon you use? Ideally I’d love to use something like this: https://amzn.to/3KK0bwG
Would this work with ST?
To be clear: No Bluetooth device in this category works directly with smartthings. You have to go through another app as an intermediary, and the method I mentioned uses apps which can issue a Webhook, which is how you get the information back to Smartthings.
I use a method that specifically uses “ibeacons,” which have their own messaging protocol, and there are several third-party apps which can receive those messages and then act on them in various ways. That’s how you get the smartthings integration.
The device you linked to is not an IBeacon. It has its own messaging protocol. You could still use this method If its own app can send something you can trigger off of, but I’m not familiar with that particular device. So it might work, it might not. I will note that it has a lot of bad reviews, I personally wouldn’t buy anything for this purpose with less than four stars, but that’s just me. I agree it’s very nice looking.
As far as the IBeacons I used, originally I used Estimotes, and I still like those, but their emphasis now is really large organizations as customers and they’re pushing UWB (Ultra Wideband) instead of Bluetooth and you have to have more technical proficiency now to use them. I think the engineering is good, I just don’t think they’re as good a match to an individual automating a home as they used to be.
These days I mostly recommend blue charm IBeacons. They have several models with slightly different features. You can get them on Amazon so they’re easy to return if they don’t work for you. Their most popular keychain model is about $18; All their products are four stars or higher. And they have very good English language customer support.
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Charm-Beacons-Bluetooth-BC021-MultiBeacon/dp/B08PCHJ1KS/
Blue charm is the one that has become quite popular with home assistant users, for example.
This is a tiny company, but it’s been around for several years, and even if the company went out of business, you could still use the IBeacons.
Also, as they note in their Quickstart guide, you can use this straight out of the box without requiring any configuration. You just have to get the device ID and then you use that in your third-party app. So I think it’s a good choice for Home Automation Projects.
Another popular brand is radius networks, and their individual devices are somewhat cheaper than blue charm (although they also look cheaper), but they seem to have issues with battery life, which makes them more suitable for big events like conventions than for every day home automation use. And some of the models don’t allow you to replace the battery.
There are quite a few very cheap Chinese brands, but most of those seem to have reliability issues. 
And here’s the discussion thread for the exact process of getting the information into smartthings. It says UK in the title, but the information would apply to other regions as well.
Thanks JD.
It sounds as if a third party app will be required for any of those devices?
I wasn’t necessarily saying I wanted to sue the fobs I listed, just giving the idea of what I’d like.
I feel like so much of this is over my head. I used ST because it was simple but now that my needs have changed, this particular need seems so complex.
Thanks
Yes, in fact, you actually need two third-party apps (unless you want to do your own coding). One to detect the key fob device and send a Webhook over to the second app, which will then communicate with smartthings.
I’ve detailed all this in a new post I just put up this morning in that Ibeacon FAQ thread:
Gotcha. Thanks.
This is so over my head. Is there a “plug and play” device I can add as an arrival sensor such as it does with my phone?
Would any of these devices work directly with ST to do what I want?
If those devices are already associated with your ST account, I’d check the If-> Device Status in Routines to see if they are exposed for location tracking/presence. I know that Air Tags aren’t supported in ST.
I don’t have any of those, I was just looking at the add a device section of the app and looked at tags. These all seem to be Bluetooth I believe.
There may be an option for people who have galaxy smart phones, but I don’t believe any of the Bluetooth ones work directly with smartthings iOS at the time of this writing. I agree it would be nice if they did, but right now the Multiple app approach I already outlined is the only one that I know that works with a keychain device. Hopefully, if someone else knows of one they will post.
Gotcha. Thanks JD
So after ALL that, to answer the OP’s question, there is no key chain presence device anymore.
Seems that is correct, at least not one that’s native to ST
