Hey everyone. I am new to Hubitat converting over from SmartThings this weekend. The experience has been great so far. The added flexibility that Hubitat provides is significantly better than SmartThings (but if you are here, you probably already know that).
I am having a heck of a time getting my iOS devices (2 iPhone 11 Pros and an iPad Pro up and running on updating presence automatically as well as getting notifications to come through.
I've seen several other topics around these issues, but nothing that quite hit the mark. I am seeing the notification show up in my log when they are getting sent, they are just not hitting the devices. As a work around, I have setup Pushover and am using the trial of that, and that is working fine, but i would ideally just like to use the Hubitat app. I have tried logging in and out of the app, deleting it and removing it. Removing the mobile device and adding it again as a new device to make sure I don't have duplicates and nothing works.
As for Presence, I can force it to check for presence by using the "send geo event" button in the app and that works, but it isn't updating automatically. Again, I've seen posts around this, but I haven't found anything that has worked. I have seen some of those aggregator presence apps as well, but again, I'm looking to keep it simple if possible.
Any thoughts or guidance? I'm happy to provide more info as needed. I figured I'd start with the community before submitting a support email.
My S8 will randomly switch to out of geofence when I'm sitting in my office next to the hub. The device location shown in the gefence on the app shows that I'm at the house as does the hub. If I simply change the size of the geofence, it will show correctly for a time.
Weird.
For how much they claim they don't use more than 5-10% battery during a whole day, Life360 has been killing my battery so I don't get good location data from it with battery optimization turned on. Works great on my wife's S10+.
P.S. Life360 sells your driving data to Arity. Make sure you opt out of Arity's personal data use. Life360 Support
Check that Location services is turned ON, under settings on iPhone, for Hubitat and set to Always.
Also think about combining several ‘presence’ services to improve the reliability.
E.g I’m using Locative + IPhone Presence + HE’s native. (use Search to find them)
Thanks for the replies and thoughts. I have put the Hubitat beta on my devices and I think that did the trick. I understand that it is a beta and that might change, but I will watch it over the next couple of days.
The one event I really need to watch is the mobile app presence sensor arrival/departure notification. I did have some instances where the geofencing worked correctly, but didn't send a notification.
I have been running the trial of pushover and I do think it has some advantages. I agree that the cost is probably worth it.
I do have location turned on to always on the iOS devices as well. I played with Life360 last night a bit and I have to say, I don't like all the data they are collecting so I think I am going to avoid that if I have to. I'll check out Locative as well. I'll take a look at iPhone WiFi Presence Sensor as well.
Thanks for the thoughts. I post an update in the next day or so.
I would (and do) use a combined presence app. If SmartThings presence worked well for you, there is a way to use it by installing the HubConnect app, which is very good, and mirroring your presence from SmartThings. I would keep SmartThings anyway if you ever need to update zigbee devices, just make sure to not use the same zigbee channel on both hubs.
The wife's iPhone is in the same boat. She's about to the point where I am either going to have to go back to Life360 or rip out the smart home altogether (the latter is her suggestion). I'm not having any issues with the android app. I loaded the beta version on her phone but it still constantly shows her coming and going. Not good when she is already running late for work and the house keeps going dark and saying there is an intruder in the house....over and over. She's running the latest version of the beta app and the latest iOS version. If I can every yank her phone for a little bit, I will open a ticket.
LOL @bjcastrellon. Sounds super similar to my wife. I had good luck with the Hubitat presence sensor leaving today. I think I’m going to set the Mrs. up with the iPhone WiFi Presence Sensor as she doesn’t want doors/locks open/closing on their own. So the WiFi sensor for her may be good enough as her phone will connect before she gets in the house to flip lights and what not on. THe WiFi arrival piece may not work for me, but departure may. I’ll play with @jwetzel1492 ‘s Hubitat Combined Presence tonight.
Notifications seem to be working with the updated beta version of the app. It is matching what Pushover is doing so far. I am going to ride out the trial of Pushover and make a decision. I do like the customizable sounds that pushover provides so that is a plus.
