Did you open a ticket with support to see if they could help?
Not yet, double checking the settings to see if I've missed something. Just a question on the forum to see if anyone else had seen a change.
usually, "phone as a presence sensor" is not accepted as a stable solution and most probably support will tell us that "this is a phone issue" rather than a problem on their software.
however, I don't have the problem on my Smartthings app.
Actually, Hubitat's mobile app is terrible. It even does not have nice tiles to show multiple information from a device.
They should hire a mobile app developer...
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Not sure what to tell you. @aaiyar is right that android is a fragmented OS, and that just makes it more difficult for app developers to guarantee that everything works across every combination of devices and OS versions.
You can try to report your issue to support, or not. Never a guarantee there’s an easy fix, but if you’re not even willing to open a ticket, it’s hard to expect them to identify and prioritize trends/underlying problems to fix their apps.
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You should multiplex presence detection. There are several apps that will let you do that, including: Combined Presence, Presence Governor, Presence Plus, and Presence Central.
Using any of the apps, along with HubConnect, you could even use the ST app for geofencing/presence on the HE app.
On my phone, the ST app is not very reliable, so I don't use it; rather I set my presence based on input from the Hubitat app, the Alexa app, the Life360 app, my car's geofencing, my phone connecting to my WiFi router, and the use of specific keycodes ......
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well, actually I am developing apps for Android myself. It is correct that Android is a fragmented OS. But with correct permissions I can easily make my apps stay alive in background and collect location information. It is not a very difficult task.
Besides, me and my wife , we are using Samsung phones. Samsung adds features over Android OS but mostly does not break anything in the core. As a mainline Android brand , I would expect from a company like Hubitat to test the mobile app on some Samsung phones and make the app work on these as stable as possible.
However, Hubitat team does not prioritize the mobile app. As we all know, for a long time, they didn't even publish a mobile application for the platform.
That's why I don't have any confidence in Hubitat team to be aggressive about fixing an issue on this app. Besides, this is not just my problem. It is a well-known issue as far as I read on the forums.
@aaiyar
In fact, I have a most stable solution for presence. All my family members have zwave presence sensors. So I really don't need the "software" presence sensing solution. Besides, if I decide to migrate all my automations from ST to HE hub, I will use one of the multiplex presence detection mechanisms as you suggested.
But I didn't decide to migrate yet. I have other issues with HE that needs to be fixed. (my hub is crashing every few days , and support is saying that "it should be something with the custom apps that are installed")
so, if I have physical presence sensors, and if I am willing to use an additional multiplex presence detection mechanism, why am I trying to solve this phone presence issue ?
because it is an issue and it really requires to be fixed. If HE wants to be an option to ST owners, these issues need to be fixed.
and to admit; I am a little bit obsessive about this kind of problems.
When I check the logs on my phone, I see that presence information is not updated because my phone could not reach the address "cloud,hubitat.cm"
This is either , "from my network it is not being resolved - DNS" , or when it tries to update location, my phone data connection is closed (I close it sometimes by night) and the app does not retry when connection becomes available.
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btw, I just submitted the issue to support. (Although I don't believe they will take it as a prioritized issue)
I am not an app developer, for any operating system, but if it were easy to come up with a rock solid geolocation feature that didn’t constantly drain the phone’s battery, then every mobile app would do it.
In my experience as an app user though, many other cloud-connected home automation products can have a lot of trouble with consistent, reliable geolocation.
Respectfully, you have come off as pretty dismissive re: several elements of the hubitat platform and app since the OP. Perhaps that was unintentional, perhaps not.
But if you can come up with a way to constructively participate in the troubleshooting process without insulting the app developers, hopefully you get to the resolution you’re looking for. Hopefully opening a troubleshooting ticket is a start.
Best of luck.
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that is intentional. Because, I have 3 active issues (with or without tickets) and I couldn't get any positive resolution. HE support is always approaching like everything to blame is custom apps or the customer behavior (or customer devices).
HE is a hub designed to be in the center of many devices and integrations. And custom apps are supported (at least that is a presented feature)
if somebody come up with such a hub solution, they should be responsive to solve anything which may be triggered by a 3rd party device or software.
I am not saying that HE should solve the issues of 3rd part hardware or devices, but they should take accountability to assist the customer in troubleshooting issues.
Until now, all I get was "check your custom apps" , "remove custom apps"
for example, I have a crash issue which occurs every few days. Support told me to delete all custom apps and then add them one by one.
is that a feasible solution ? Should I really disable 10-15 apps and then troubleshoot them one by one ?
If I were the service provider here, I would create a debug firmware and try to log the error which causes the crash. Then it would identify the problematic custom app which then could be worked on.
I have a number of custom apps. I used to have slowdown issues. I did what support says and started eliminatiing apps till I found the problem. So it is a viable solution. Really not that hard to do. I haven't had an issue since.
Regarding presence. My HE app is not all that reliable for presence. It works maybe 75% of the time. However, Life360 isn't any better. So I don't blame it on the HE app. My phone is a Pixel with Android 10. All the settings regarding location, battery, etc. are correct. So as @marktheknife says it ain't necessarily HE's fault.
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I'm not sure if I'm reading this correctly but are you saying that if you write a custom app or have a device running your device type code that causes issues on your hub, you expect HE staff to help you sort out your defective code?
If so, this is just not a viable scenario in my opinion and nor should they have to.
I know absolutely nothing about writing suitable code for the HE hub and if I was to try I'm sure the hub would die within hours if not minutes. Should I then raise a ticket and expect HE to sort out my code? I think not.
If I'm not reading you correctly, I apologise.
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Is this true? I'm unable to find it in any of Hubitat's literature. Can you post a link? Thanks!
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I would also disagree with this statement. From everything I have read, while it’s possible to write your own code for drivers and apps to run on a hubitat hub, that’s not even close to the same thing as saying custom apps and drivers are “supported” by Hubitat.
I believe you have created an expectation that is not consistent with what hubitat staff have publicly discussed, either here in the forum or elsewhere.
In that context, your disappointment is entirely understandable, but it’s not their fault if you have misconstrued how they intend for custom code to interact with the platform they have created. You may need to reconsider your own expectations.
And as for your criticisms of the mobile app, if you’re intentionally using insulting language, by all means do whatever you think is best. But personally I would stick to constructive criticism without calling someone else’s work
if I actually expected them to work with me to improve things. People just don’t respond that well to insults, generally speaking.
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Giving rise to the old adage - you'll catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
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I didn't say that. Please read carefully. Here's what I wrote:
I am not saying that HE should solve the issues of 3rd part hardware or devices, but they should take accountability to assist the customer in troubleshooting issues.
I am not expecting you to solve the issue with 3rd party code or device.
I am just expecting to help in troubleshooting.
well if custom apps are not supported, then why do we have an UI enabling us to write our own code for drivers and apps ?
So you DO expect HE to help you sort YOUR code out.
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Being compatible with well-written custom apps/drivers and supporting them are two entirely different things.
The difference isn't a matter of semantics either.
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Your own experience would indicate they have done precisely that. It was suggested you should disable all custom code and add it back one at a time to find the offender. While this method didn't appeal to you, there is little doubt it would work.
