Yes I realise this widely posted that location data outside viewing on the map in SmartThings app is not available. I’m still surprised this is not available, even if we chose we understand the risks of privacy… Such a short coming for something that could add much benefit to automations in SmartThings…
I thought maybe I had a work around. Not great but had some hope.
Had my car tag put as notify when not near a tablet at home that never leaves home (wall mounted)… OK tick at least I can get some notification of when my car leaves home. Thought I’d intercept that notification with an Android app (tasker and autonotification plugin) and update a switch status in home assistant seeing that can’t be done in SmartThings.
Then ticked the box to say notify when found, thinking that would mean when the tag came home, near my tablet, that I would then get a notification the tag was found, and then do the same intercept of notification to mark my car was home…
Except… The notify found button has to be ticked each time… Damn it. Thought I found a dodgy hack at least to determine when my car had left and come home. But still a fail.
I’m struggling to not get frustrated that these devices are so limited with regards automations. Something that they should add much benefit…
The main issue with these is also an issue with Apple tags, which have the same limitations for the same reasons: if they gave you real time location information, the batteries would only last a day or two. So they only report location when they are asked to check in.
So until we get better battery technology, frequent presence checks is best done with something you do charge every day, like your phone or a smart watch.
I’m prepared to be corrected as early days for me… But my car location had many updates in its history when I hadn’t opened the app I’m sure. Every couple of minutes there was an update when I drove home yesterday.
The launch publicity for the SmartThings Station rather implied it was a bit more capable of triggering a response to arrival (and departure?) of tags but was rather vague. I don’t know what the reality is.
Certainly it, and certain Samsung TVs, are meant to be capable of acting as ‘offline finding devices’ to report location. But that is rather ‘so what?’ unless they can also do something with that information.
As many of us do, I find it rather curious that we are able to see the reported location of a tag on a map but not have the underlying ‘coordinates’ to it. Indeed we can get directions to the tag on the Google Maps app so we can get a pretty precise fix on that reported location. So we are just getting the information in a very inconvenient form.
