Hubitat app presence detection problems

Thanks @marktheknife, I'm about to release a V2 of Combined Presence. Look for it before Monday.

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Cool! Looking forward to see what magic you have done this time. It works well now, so I don't know how you can improve upon it much.

It's mostly a documentation and guidance update. It guides users into using the correct settings, so they don't have to figure out which logical categories to put their sensors into.

Will be fully backwards-compatible too, so it won't break any existing installations.

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I'll be looking for it!

Well, I got combined presence set up and it's working. I'll see how the timing works out over the next week, but I've left the house a few times and so far everything is working correctly. I'm using life360 and the iPhone wifi presence. It seems to work on my OnePlus as expected, but I had to turn off the "randomized MAC" option in Android 10 so my router could give my phone a static IP. Wasn't something I was aware Android 10 did. I'm thinking I may still add an ST Arrival sensor to the mix.

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I have just release V2.0 of Combined Presence. The best way to get the update is to install via Hubitat Package Manager, but you can also install directly from GitHub.

It should be fully backwards compatible and not break any existing combiner instances.

The most important update is the new "Standard Combiner". This instance has the optimal logic for detecting presence of a person using multiple geofencing and wifi-based presence sensors. You don't have to think about the boolean operations involved. It just does it the best way based on the performance characteristics of the different sensor types.

https://community.hubitat.com/t/release-combined-presence

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I'm relieved that I'm not the only one experiencing presence issues on with the app...

I am really looking forward to trying version 2.0 of Combined Presence! Version 1 has been absolutely awesome. What has been working for me is combining:

  1. Hubitat App's presence (which has been extremely flaky for me of late on iOS)
  2. Google Wifi reporting devices on the wifi via IFTTT to toggle a presence switch (Which stopped working on July 19th)
  3. IFTTT Location to toggle a presence switch

Initially all 3 have worked, but at least 1 typically does, so it has worked well for me without being to hard on the battery.

Has anyone heard of a way to incorporate iOS's "find my" capability to Hubitat? I would add that to the mix if I knew how...

A couple things:

  • Yes, the presence built into the Hubitat app has never worked reliably for me. I don't use it at all anymore.
  • Check out the chatter from the last couple days on this topic: [UPDATED] iPhone WiFi Presence Sensor It might help with your wifi detection.
  • You can also try out my driver: https://community.hubitat.com/t/updated-iphone-wifi-presence-sensor It's named iPhone presence, but it works for Android too.
  • You can incorporate iOS's "find my" capability by integrating with HomeKit. You'll have to set up HomeBridge on a device like a Raspberry Pi. It's a bigger topic than I'll be able to cover in this reply, but it works very well.
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Jut installed it and set it up. I added it to the combiner V2.0 and moved my rules from the "Add a new Boolean-OR Combiner" to the "Add a new Standard Combiner". It works great! It got tested a few minutes afterwards by my wife leaving, but IFTTT staying stuck on "present"... Her presence status changed as soon as she left.

Thank you for the update!

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Its been my experience that if you want a solid presence sensor using an android phone use a combination of Tasker and Autolocation apps with Hubitat Maker API. When you hit the specified Geo zones, the trigger is just about instantaneous. I used this setup when I used ST and recently modified it for HE.

That sounds great! Unfortunately, I have an iPhone, and am not familiar with tasked... probably an Android app?

Yes Android. Yes but some of the iPhone users here use an iPhone app called Locative. Check out some of the posts here

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So as a new guy from SmartThings for all the right reasons - this was my first query in the forum. Just attempted a presence with the iOS application and took almost 30 min to after my arrival to show 'ENTER' is the session details on the the applications. Would great to hear yes this works - or no try this workaround...

To follow up, I turned off the native hubitat app geofence, it was useless. I am now using life360, iphone wifi presence (on my OnePlus, no issues) and a Smart things arrival sensor, all combined into the combined presence app. This has been working perfectly for me so far.

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:laughing:

The more the better. Life360 kills my wife's phone performance, so I use ST arrival and Wi-Fi. Looking into the battery mod for the ST arrival as it eats wafer batteries.

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Yeah, it's the belt and suspenders approach. I'm thinking about dropping the life360 and doing some more testing. I haven't noticed a performance hit on my phone, but it is killing my battery with the quickness. It might also be time for a new battery in my phone.


For me it's one of my higher apps but still not using much at all and my battery usually lasts a couple days.

So everyone thanks for the heads up and went with this workaround: Used virtual presence with switch with the Alexa app location tracking on two iOS devices.

I have the arrival routine set to be at the minimum (~500ft) and the departure routine set to be at (~750ft) of location.

It has been working well for about a week with no reporting faults on two iPhone XS and the power usage has been negligible. I turned off all the SmartThings location access and actually seeing better daily battery life now than before.

I'm using Geofency, partly because of my privacy concerns with Life360. It was mentioned on another thread, where they provide instructions on using it. I'm very happy with it. Cost US$2.99 for the family.

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I did actually drop the life360 app. Now it's just my ST arrival sensor and the iPhone wifi presence. It's been working very reliably. I'm fairly certain my ST sensor is doing the bulk of the lifting on detecting my arrival. My phone won't connect to the wifi until I wake it up.

I have an August Pro door lock now, and my presence triggers it to unlock. It usually unlocks just as I get to the door, but occasionally it'll take a few seconds. It's never long enough to actually be able to get my phone out of my pocket to wake it up.