Alternatives to using ST presence

as the starter of this thread i demand you all to stop speaking over my head.

3 Likes

I completely agree.. I am going to ask @bobbyD to split this at around post 75-77

I'm actually using an old iPad mini that just always stays at home, but that was a good idea to check! Unfortunately, all appears OK there too, as well. (It may have been locked for too long and I'm not sure if that prevents it from really acting as a hub--not sure if it eventually stops connecting to Wi-Fi until its woken up or something--so we'll see next time I leave home.)

EDIT: Seemed to work the next couple times I came home (within a few hours after doing this), but now doesn't seem to be working anymore. Maybe my iPad/hub went into too much of a "deep sleep" again. I'll see next time I get home if it works for a while again after I wake it up. If so and this is the cause, this won't be a good solution for me but presumably would work better for those with an AppleTV (which I don't want to get just for this).

My HomeKit presence works well. But I've had other weird location issues before.

These services are all tied together via iCloud. The one thing that seems to address many of these issues is to log out of iCloud and log back in. Also, make sure your home address is selected properly on your personal Contacts card.

The HomeKit Hub has one location, the iPhone has it's own. When those two overlap, "presence = true"

Obviously if the HomeKit Hub thinks it's miles away, then the two "circles" never overlap. Creating a new Automation gives a glimpse into where the phone thinks it is.

I didn't find any method of getting the HomeKit hub (apple TV for me) to display it's map, or coordinates.

The above is exactly what I'm doing, but it is not consistently working for me. (Unlike with "Share My Location" disabled, which it never prompts you to enable if it's not, it does at least work sometimes now.)

EDIT: It seems to be working more reliably for me the last few days. I'm not sure if it's because my HomeKit hub (the iPad mini) has been on/used more or if something about using HomeKit for this takes a few days for it to "stabilize" (realize it needs to watch out for this?). I am assuming it was something with my hub, however, since it didn't work at all after enabling these features before I "woke it up" and unlocked it--something I don't often do since the only reason I'm using it as my hub is that it's always at home, it's old, and I don't use it for much (besides this) anymore. :slight_smile:

Well my last 2 things is, then I’ll butt out, is in Dhare My Location, you do have the phone you want to use as location selected right? I know that sounds simplistic but I’ve had 2 people I worked with have that set to the hub and not the phone and if you go to Find MyPhone in iCloud, does that properly show your location or more specifically, the device location? Obviously this needs to be checked when Home and when Away. Hope you solve it. Not gloating but mine is 100% reliable. Maybe talk to Apple Support?

So I got Homebridge presence working for my wife and I.
Goooooodbye Life360!
In fairness it's on the nice list lately.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.