Smart Presence Sensor not working

[jklondon (ravi)]

Attached the sensor to my wifes key chain yesterday so we could link the other sensors to when we both leave/arrive but the sensor always says its present even when its clearly miles away.

Anyone come across problem with the sensor, any advice on what to do?

Thanks

[Mr_Lucky (Bob)]

@jklondon

the sensor always says its present even when its clearly miles away.

Are you judging this based on the actual status shown in the mobile app, or on the failure of something to happen as a result of not being present? If it’s the latter, there is an “Action delay time” setting that defaults to 10 minutes, which waits that long before doing anything. If that’s the case, dropping it down to a value of 2 or 3 minutes will likely help. If you actually are reading the device status, then you may have a bad unit, in which case you should contact support at smartthings.com.

FWIW, we’ve actually found the Samsung/SmartThings presence fob to be much more reliable than the iPhone 6 presence we previously used for my wife.

[JDRoberts]

This is a known new problem. It’s first turned up in UK about six weeks ago, and after the firmware push last week it is starting to show up on US accounts. Support told me it was “trending”.

Open a support ticket.

If you like, you can also try the following: remove the battery from the presence sensor and reset it, but don’t readd it to the network yet. Then unplug the hub including removing the batteries and leave it off-line for at least 15 minutes. Then repower the hub. Then use the reset button on the hub. Then re-add the present sensor to the network. But it may only work for another 24 hours and then fail again.

Note that a present sensor which reports itself as “away” when it isn’t may just be having trouble staying connected, which is one kind of problem.

But a device which reports itself as “present” when it isn’t is an account problem. Totally different kind of issue. Because the way that the “present” status works is the device always checks in every 30 seconds and after you miss a certain number of Checkins, The account (not the fob) marks the device as away. So failing to change from present to way is an account failure. Most of the topics in the forum deal with the connection issue, not the account issue.

There are two recent topics dealing with the account level failure.

Presence sensors: Just stopped working [Platform issue now fixed!]

I have two presence sensors which form the basis for much of my use of SmartThings at the moment. They have been working fine since I bought them, but today they have completely stopped working. Both sensors are showing ‘present’ even while I was away in work all day and my wife was in and out of the house all day on the school run etc. This has worked pretty well up until now (other than some false readings during the night for some reason) but today they are totally non-functional. Has anyone else experienced this or able to advise what I can do to rectify it? Thanks

[jklondon (ravi)]

Ok - opened support ticket hour ago, got back response (which was good). As you say JD known problem, they changed something on their end which should fix the problem, will test tomorrow when I leave the house.

Thanks

[jklondon (ravi)]

Ok so they managed to fix this on their side.

However I cant get the app to trigger ‘Goodbye’ when myself and my wife leave the house. Got confirmation that we both left but the trigger did not happen. Any ideas welcomed.

[deano12 (Dean Smith)]

They fixed it?

That’s a bit of a problem then as they stated to me that there is no fix yet! @Aaron whats this all about?

[Aaron (Aaron S)]

It’s getting significant attention. I will update as soon as I know more.

[jklondon (ravi)]

Hi Aaron any update on this?

[jklondon (ravi)]

Still having problems with my phone and a sensor tag - right now got notification that my phone was not present even though a few meters away from the hub. Does this even work?