New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on January 22, 2022) follows:

Owned by Samsung Electronics, SmartThings is an automation company based out of Mountain View, California. Last year, Samsung updated the SmartThings Framework with several new home automation capabilities.

SmartThings also has a mobile presence feature that gives the app the ability to detect when users enter a particular location so they can trigger an automation task.

iphone-13-pro-inline-image

It works by using the phone’s location like a sensor, But according to recent reports from iOS users, the SmartThings presence feature is not working unless they leave the app open all the time.

While some said that the SmartThings presence issue has been rampant since July last year, it looks many were affected after updating their device to iOS 15.

SmartThings-presence-not-working-after-iOS-15-update

I recently got my wife the new IPhone 13 and ever since then I haven’t been able to get her SmartThings to use her phone as a presence sensor. I have tried deleting it off of IDE and re-adding it and still no luck. I have confirmed that her phone has location services turn to always on. Anyone else having this issue?
(Source)

Like others I have been experiencing this brutal issue since the release of ios15. A large part of our automations are based on presence so it has essentially made SmartThings useless to us. For Samsung to allow this issue to remain for so long is unacceptable as they must know presence is a huge part of the appeal of home automation. They must know it is one of the most important functions for their users. It seems they do not care about the user experience at all.
(Source)

On further investigation, we found that some geofencing apps such as Honeywell and iConnectHue are also facing the same issue, indicating that the problem is with iOS 15 and not the SmartThings app.

Moreover, some reports suggest that SmartThings developers are allegedly aware that the presence feature is buggy at best on iOS 15 and are working on fixing the same.

Here is what I received from support “ I would like to inform you that we’ve gotten word from our engineers, this is a known issue caused by the iOS 15 update. We are aware of the issue and we continue to investigate. Since iOS 15, it would seem the SmartThings App is unable to run in the background for as long as it used to be able to. We are looking at ways to resolve this.
(Source)

Some also say that the issue has been fixed in iOS 15.3 public beta.

SmartThings-presence-not-working-after-iOS-15-update-apparently-fixed
Source

But while Apple is yet to say anything on the matter, it is still unknown if the problem is with iOS 15 or the SmartThings app.

As always, we’ll keep an active track of the developments on this one and update the story, as and when required.

Update 1 (February 22, 2022)

12:12 pm (IST): According to user reports, the stable iOS 15.3 update seems to have fixed the iPhone presence issue on SmartThings app. However, reports (1, 2) of the same problem are now showing up from the app’s Android camp after a recent update.

As it stands, location triggering is not working on Android, but perhaps rolling back to the older version may alleviate the issue as we wait for an official solution.

Note: We have more such stories in our dedicated iOS Section so be sure to follow them as well.

PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on ‘breaking’ or ‘exclusive’ news. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Want to know more about us? Head here.

Anurag Chawake
1373 Posts

My fascination with technology and computers goes back to the days of Windows XP. Since then, I have been tinkering with OS, mobile phones, and other things. When I am not working on anything, you will find me enjoying video games on some Discord server.

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