From what I can make out, the thing shown on the door is the bit that connects to the hub, and is activated by the key thing being within around 2.5 m / 8 ft, or by the keypad. This seems an interesting idea, though only if you can buy extra keys. The retail price being suggested on the sites advertising it is of the order of £110, which seems eye watering for what is really a more secure version of hiding a button behind a bush and hoping no one is watching.
I guess if you use the arrival/presence sensors with a single access point for things like disarming alarms, and can stop laughing at the price, then it is an interesting alternative and indeed a better idea in some respects. It seems to me that it would only indicate arrival though, not presence.
If, however, you use the arrival/presence sensors as a slightly more hit and miss arrival sensor (anywhere from fifty feet away to walking through the door) and as a suggestion of recent presence, then it isn’t in any way a replacement.
I don’t know about anywhere else, but in the UK a couple of years back the starter kits used to retail at about £200 but were often available from Amazon for £100, while the individual price of the hub was about £90. So unsurprisingly a really healthy market developed in cheap brand new hubs and arrival sensors from starter kits that had been purchased just for the outlet and other sensors (even without selling the unwanted bits, £100 was less than the individual prices for these). This market has largely dried up now, largely because of price changes, and also because it is anybodies guess what Samsung actually sell in the UK now (and I include Samsung in that).
The arrival sensors have always been marmite, and a healthy nearly new market was driven by those who couldn’t get on with the things and just wanted to get rid of them. That seems to have largely dried up now, in favour of unrealistic prices based on scarcity, and a much smaller used market.
I used Scotch tape to fix it in. Works well for the past 2 years. Those plastic battery clips are a nightmare. I am always confused what should be the right way to remove the battery.
@orangebucket, I have actually bought a second starter set for all the extra pieces and bit. The Hub hasn’t been ever powered on.
I have come here searching for the same answers. Ive purchased loads of spare arrival tags and slowly they have all broken and totally unusable. Ebay has dried up and the VISON and eZEX ones are not available in UK.
These are hugely important to my smartthome and I cant rely on my phone. Is anyone at SmartThings even reading this? Have they been discontinued or will Aeotec bring out a better version?
This forum was set up many years ago so that customers could help other customers. It is not an official support channel and there is no guarantee that anyone from Smartthings is reading it. There are some staff members who post here from time to time on their own initiative, but they are not assigned to do so.
The best way to get official attention is to post on the smartthings Facebook page or Twitter feed: those are at least read by marketing staff and may be escalated if they get a lot of attention.
As far as the arrival sensors, it looks like they are being discontinued. At least there have not been any official announcements that Aeotec or anyone else is going to pick them up. And Samsung just informed people who have the newer “tracker“ device that it will be discontinued shortly.
So again, although they haven’t said anything officially, it looks like they are expecting people to use their phones for Geopresence triggers.
By the way, if the use case it’s just that you need something to give to someone who doesn’t have a smart phone, like a child, you can use any of the handheld button remotes that work with smartthings but it will require pressing the button each time. And if you want both arrival and departure, you will have to get a model with two buttons and the person will have to know enough to know which button to press.
It’s obviously not a perfect solution, but it is an alternative for some people for some use cases.
Hi
Thanks for the reply. I use neither twitter or Facebook and dont really want to for several reasons
Its a massive shame that they are being discontinued. A perfect case example is the one above. A button is not really a valid replacement because it still requires an action.
I was hoping the new SmartTag would work but it seems not.
In the case of a child, somone who is elderly or mentally or physically disabled and who do not or cant use phones and either don’t have the ability or memory capacity to push a button. Placing these in a bag or clothing etc is ideal.
Perhaps their new SmartTag should have zigbee chip in too
Ill send a suggestion to ST and hope for a reply
I understand. I myself am quadriparetic, use a wheelchair and have limited hand function, so I need an automatic option as well.
In my case, I use an iBeacon, which can work quite well if you have an iOS tablet to act as a receiving station, but is not as good with android.
To make it work with SmartThings, I use a third party app, geofency, which can send a webhook to IFTTT. We have had other community members in both the US and the UK use it. Note that the following thread uses the Estimote brand as an example but they no longer sell individual units. There are other brands available in different regions, you just have to search.
To be honest these days I mostly use mine directly with HomeKit since there is now native integration. But I still use geofency occasionally.
So that’s a solid reliable handsfree presence option as long as you have an iPad at home to act as a receiving station. However, integration with ST does require cloud operations and a fairly clunky integration.
@welshbryn - Do you mean the battery holder or what exactly? Can you share a picture if you do have any? I use two of them for years and haven’t had any other issue but the battery holder’s plastic torn apart.
Battery holder has broken multiple times and glued multiple times, reset button has popped off and then lost when opened to change battery, metal battery clip has snapped.
This is the second post of mine you have commented on and i feel your very condescending.
Im not totally stupid I know when something is broken and cant be used or beyond repair. I dont need to send you a picture for you to verify its broken. I too have had them for years and over the years they have broken.
If i was the only one in this situation, this post wouldnt exist
I don’t think so: they aren’t on the list of zigbee devices that Aeotec has announced and Samsung itself had been moving towards different technologies for geopresence.
At this point I think they’re expecting people to use phone-based presence.
Thanks