Yeah, this thread was just one day’s discussion. The FAQ linked to above does mention Fingbox, as well as a number of other options not discussed in this thread… 
Thanks
I’m wondering why we would need another whole network box to do this?
My cell phone knows it is either on my wifi or not and android speaks to ifttt with the same latency right?
Why would fingbox be better than using android networking on the phone?
Thanks
You don’t, necessarily, it just depends on exactly which router you have and which software you are willing to use.
Fingbox comes with this feature built in and is quite easy to use, so some people prefer it.
If you read the presence FAQ referenced above, you will find people have posted a number of different ways that they did it using their existing router without Fingbox. And of course some people have privacy concerns about any third-party service and would rather do it all themselves. So different things will work for different people. 
I already had the Fingbox so for me it was not an extra purchase. However, the application I found it useful for is not for knowing who is in the house when I or my wife are home, but rather who else is home when we are not. We have a rather popular 16 year old in the house. All her friends of course have to hang out here. As such I have captured all their devices on Fing. Now we know who is over. Especially who is over when we are not home. The cameras would tell us that if we were to look at them. But with this I can trigger messages tailored to who is there. For example, if a boyfriend comes over when we are not there (against the rules) I can trigger a tailored voice message over Alexa to tell him hello and that unfortunately it is time to go and if he doesn’t then I or my better half will be notified. He doesn’t need an app on his phone to do that. Fing tells us and triggers the announcement.
This is just one application but the basic reason is we don’t need apps like life 360 or SmartThings in every phone that enters the house. Guest mode can be triggered for some known people. Etc.
LJ
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It seems like they’re REALLY close to having a fully functioning presence working with phone, I’ve used 4 different phones so with their own issues connecting to SHM automatically, but after this long with no solid working presence directly from ST, I’ve lost faith that it will ever work at all without a third party perfecting it. I’ve bought multiple apps, programmed multiple workarounds, followed all these tutorials and fixes, bought the official presence sensor, and even changed my phone, but ST refuses to just WORK. My last phone was an LGV20 which I was forced to upgrade due to it no longer getting updates, and it worked 99% of the time, just sometimes my presence was a bit delayed. My wife’s iPhone was hit and miss, she now has a Sony Xperia and it never has once worked, it shows present all the time, after talking to customer support, I get the same canned troubleshooting methods they always give me. My new phone is a Nokia 7.1, and as long as I restart my phone after leaving the house every day, it works fine, but if I don’t restart my phone, sitting at work it shows my presence at the house all day until I restart, then magically I’m not home after the reboot. After contacting ST support, they made suggestions about changing my geofence to another time zone and then changing it back to my house, they’ve suggested turning off battery saver which I’ve never used, and they’ve suggested removing my old phone which I’ve verified I already did to them every single time they ask. I’ve tried both classic and new apps, nothing works, so I give up, the battery hungry ST tracker works 100% of the time and recognises me in my front yard as soon as I walk up and 10 minutes after I leave, so it seems I’m buying stock in batteries
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Have u tried the Life 360 app.
That’s very reliable if u adjust it to not shut down when battery is low.
My Google pixel 2xl does the presence 99% perfect.
Make sure u are running the latest version of Android on your phone.