I have set up some rules to set the Smart Home Monitor to Away mode based on when both my wife’s and my phone leaves my home and reset it when one or other returns home. This basically works well, except it is slow to recognize when one of us returns home (especially by car) so it is a little slow to turn the Smart Home Monitor to home mode.
Is it possible to make this more responsive or is there a better way of doing it.
I have recently set up SmartThings and am trying out SharpTools. So far I Like what I see but would appreciate some suggestions.
Are you using the presence built into SmartThings? iPhone or Android phones?
Take a look through the treads over at the SmartThings community forum. This has been discussed ad nauseum over the years. The TLDR version is that YMMV. For some it works reliably, for others, not so much. SharpTools simply reads the presence presented from SmartThings, so there is nothing that can be done on this end.
There are threads there that discuss improving presence:
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Thanks Chris - we are using Android phones - both are Samsung. I am using the setting to get location from this phone, which then shows as a presence sensor in SharpTools. sorry if I am a bit vague, I am still learning about SmartThings
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Thanks Bry - I’ll look into that link
@brian.ratter, you may also be interested to give Life 360 a try. I am not 100% sure if it will resolves the slow presence status update issue, but it is commonly recommended by many. I personally use Life 360 as the presence sensor and it works more reliable than the presence sensor from the ST app in general in my personal experience, but I never tested with a Samsung phone and the presence settings integrated with ST though.
This is one of the biggest problems about presence sensor in smartthings. My solution to it was using Tasker, Sharptools app(tasker plugin), and my wifi connection to control virtual presence sensors(PS) and virtual switches(VS).
Basic version is.
If wifi connected then
Tasker(sharptools plugin) sets PS to True.
If wifi NOT connected then
Tasker(sharptools plugin) sets PS to False.
Now that is a very simplified explanation.
It works extremely fast for my needs.
I do have checks in there to wait to see if I had a temporary disconnection from wifi.
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Thanks to everyone who replied. I think over the next few days I am going to try the Tasker/AutoLocation approach using the examples that @destructure00 put together ( [HOW TO] SmartThings Presence reporting using Tasker/SharpTools/AutoLocation.
Another method outside of SmartThings involves using IFTTT. If the Android device connects to WiFi then throw a virtual switch. The virtual switch throws SHM or whatever.
My native presence is working fine so I’m not using this. It worked OK, but I found that at least on an earlier version of Android, WiFi wasn’t connecting as quickly as expected.
+1 for Life 360. It works perfectly and has never failed me or my wife, Android and IOS respectively. I do use my phone as an alternate presence backup but have never needed it.
I might also add that the SmartThings presence sensor has also always worked flawlessly. My son uses this instead of Life 360 for privacy concerns. It does however go through batteries fairly quickly.
Another option is Alexa if you happen to use it. There are presence routines available there.
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