Thanks again @JDRoberts . Your post over here FAQ: Where can I see who's home and who's away in the new V3 app? is starting to make this all come together for me why all this is happening. Sometimes I just feel dumb that I can’t figure it out, but Smartthings continues to change features without really letting us know the underlying story.
It looks like after the newest release of the new app update (new NEW app?) to support these “multiple locations” features you mentioned in your linked post, they had to change the way the phone listed under “devices” in the IDE. For me, this created a duplicate phone/presence device. I kept thinking the duplicate saying “placeholder” was a dummy device and kept deleting it, when that is actually the “new” device that needs to be used. The old one, linked to webcore automations, is now dead and always home. I had to remove that one from all automations, and link to the new one. The status on the new 'placeholder device finally updated last night to show I am home. We’ll see for sure if it is working next time I leave.
The old simulated presence sensor does show in the new app, but unlike the old app, there is no way to change its status to test it. I actually tweaked the code for the simulated presence sensor to also make it a combined sensor/ on/off switch. All my webcore automations are now linked to this simulated presence sensor/contact switch, and I have one automation that links the phone’s presence to that simulated switch. If that doesn’t work, I’m going to just link the simulated switch/presence sensor to IFTTT, Alexa, or some other app that reliably works for presence as it now has the on/off capability. Alexa just “dinged” me and found the device after I made it an on/off switch so she can control it now in a routine.
Others have wrote similar code from years back, but anyone who wants the code I updated for the combined simulated presence sensor/switch can get it here https://github.com/mwav3/smartthingscode/blob/master/devicetypes/mwav3/setable-simulated-presence-sensor.src/setable-simulated-presence-sensor.groovy or from importing it from mwav3 smartthings master . Here’s what it looks like:
