I’m struggling with SmartTags and SmartThings. Neither my SmartTags nor member devices (Samsung phones) locations are updating in any kind of a useable time frame (hours/days). Clicking refresh shows searching, then ends at the same time and location for hours, it continues to show the last update, which may have been hours or days before, but if that person leaves that location, suddenly the location updates are up to the minute. For reference, we have a mix of older and newer model Smart Tags, our phones are Galaxy S20 FE 5G and Galaxy S21 5G. I’ve checked for app updates, cleared the SmartThings cache and done a phone reboot after the cache. No change. Would uninstalling and reinstalling the app help? Would my SmartTags remain intact if I did?
Thanks in advance for any help.
For both our Android and iPhone devices, the ST app has been woefully unreliable for presence. I switched to using Alexa location for presence and it has been quite good with a tight geofence of 492ft (minimum supported) and my automations run within seconds of entering the area. You can also achieve the same setup with IFTTT, but I haven’t tested its responsiveness. There is a whole discussion on presence in this topic Presence in 2023, including multiple members and multiple locations
I apologize in advance for my ignorance. Setting STs with Alexa will allow me to track them with Alexa? Is that right? We have them attached to our dogs so that if one gets out we can find them, and also in our checked and carry on bags when we travel. You’re saying I can open the Alexa app on my phone and the ST locations will update immediately? I’ll check out the topic you linked as well. Also, is this poor performance recent? We’ve had these in place for a few months and while I don’t use them/check them terribly often, I feel like anytime I’ve checked up until recently, the location update was pretty quick. Since we’re leaving on a trip next week, we’d expected these to be an asset to our travel (keeping track of bags). Really disappointing that they perform so poorly.
No, there is not that level of integration. What I am doing is using the Alexa app as my presence on my phone vs using the ST app. Alexa tracks when I leave/get home and I have an Alexa routine turn on a virtual presence sensor which I then use as a trigger in my ST automations. I started using a virtual presence sensor vs ST Member Location when Life360 was discontinued and I had to touch all my Routines to update the presence trigger event. Now, if I want to change the underlying presence mechanism, I don’t have to touch all my Routines, just whatever triggers the virtual presence sensor.
I don’t know if you an do anything about tracking SmartTags with the Alexa app or not since I don’t have any.