Question

Long-time voyeur, infrequent poster, rarely/never complain. why is geofencing or presence such a PITA with ST? My family consists of all Android users that have attempted and failed to use the native ST app and Life360. Read every FAQ and best practice on both app and hardware devices to no avail (also tried many of the suggestions from this group). I'm so tired of clearing SHM alerts because it doesn't recognize one of us is actually home. Horse is hamburger or am I in the minority?  

Answer 1

Knock on wood, but I've had pretty good luck in the last couple of years using Android and iPhones with life 360 as presence sensors. At first I had lots of issues of presence not being sensed but within the last year it seems to have gotten really good

Comments

Same here. I made sure to exclude Smartthing from power management and GPS standby and it has been working pretty good the last year or so. Still get the occasional miss about once a month.  

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I too have been about 90% successful with two users on Life360. We are android and the key was to make sure the apps (SmartThings and Life360) don't go into a state of "sleep" or "power down" or whatever the respective name is.  

Answer 2

I can tell you I never had good luck with geofencing on smartthings or HomeKit. I finally had a professional system installed and they don’t even offer it.  

Comments

Likely due to support issues.  

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@stith what do you mean?  

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As in they don't offer it because of the inherent support problems I and others experience with HA and geofencing/presence.  

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@stith ah. I’m sure you are right. I’m sure they don’t want to deal with the issues.  

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It's like calling your ISP and asking why your home WI-FI isn't working.  

Answer 3

I agree geofencing never works for me either.  

Answer 4

The issues lies in the different versions of Android and even teaks applied by the manufacturers to their Android versions that apply an aggressive power management strategy. This effectively kills off the background ST app (presence) until the app is openend again, making it totally unreliable.  

Comments

I agree, a lot of variables with Android. H/W and S/W matrices would be a nightmare.  

Answer 5

We are 2 android user, I get false alarm maybe once a week max

Answer 6

It’s just technically not there yet. Even running gps 100% of the time is still iffy. The only way to get it to work correctly currently is a wireless key fob type system For a car. Where you have a dome for the location inside and out.  

Comments

Will it ever be there?  

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@stith possibly. Imo this stuff is IN It’s infancy. It’s all first gen IMO.  

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Right now I’d say they are tweaking battery efficiency vs reliability. Bc the issues is with the radio and how they are received.  

Answer 7

I use both phone presence and ST presence sensors. We each carry a presence sensor and also have it on our iPhones. One is a backup to the other. Works really well as a Failsafe. We also have external and internal colored lights as visual indicator of SHM status. So one doesn’t open door in morning forgetting to disarm, or one doesn’t enter home from outside when arriving until SHM has indicated such. Exterior Lights blink 2 times when pulling in driveway to confirm disarm, and all internal and garge lights are red when armed/stay and armed/away. We also get a push message on arrival confirming SHM has been disarmed.  

Comments

Great idea - thx!  

Answer 8

I know my wifes s7 is a pain in the ass because it sleeps no matter what. I just ended up uaing tasker

Comments

My S9+ and Note 10 + both do the same thing. I use my phone enough through the day that it doesn't go into deep sleep, but it's really frustrating that every morning when I turn it on for the first time, I get 20 notifications that stockpiled through the night. I simply can't trust that I won't have erroneous reporting OR that I simply won't get critical notifications in a timely manner.  

Answer 9

It’s pure awesomeness for iPhone users.  

Comments

@lemur I wouldn’t say that. I’ve had plenty of issues with ios presence sensing in the past too. Does seem to be a bit more reliable than Android though.  

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@hokkaido, going on 3 years strong

Answer 10

What about the SmartThing Arrival Sensor? I got it before I knew about using my iPhone and it has been working for me. I carry it in my pocket for now, but when the weather warms up in the Spring I'll put it in the car. It gets below -4ºF here in the winter and the cold can't be good on the batteries. Anyway, it's been working for me. But then, I'n not trying to manage two of them.  

Answer 11

Make sure your radius is big enough, Gps isn’t that accurate indoors and can think your phone is next door or down the street sometimes. Use google maps or similar to get a rough idea how off it is in various parts of your home - especially the areas with the most blockage to the sky, then set your radius accordingly - plus a little extra for caution.  

Answer 12

I use Tasker, autolocation, and sharptools. Takes a bit to setup, but it's flawless. I use it everyday.  

Answer 13

Guess I am Lucky. Works great 99% of the time. Using Galaxy S8 & S10. Nexus 5 worked, too. Presence Sensor was a real struggle, but seemed okay once I got good enough Zigbee mesh built. Using Classic SmartThings.  

Answer 14

The key is disabling power management to whatever apps you're using for geolocation and also allowing the app to run in the background.  

Answer 15

Have you tried installing the WebCoRE app on your phone. It has been very reliable for me. On Android check the battery saver setting for the ST app.  

Answer 16

I only use geofencing to lock my laundry room door and turn off any lights when I leave or open the garage door when I arrive home. Works pretty much 98% of the time.