topic Re: Home or Away, that is the question! in Apps / Account

Home or Away, that is the question!

EviLEwoK666 — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 06:25:54 GMT

Ok, I have an odd one here.

It's technically 3 issues, but they are interconnected due to the whole presence-sensing settings thing in Google Home.

Before I list the issues, here is a rough breakdown of what I have:
4x Nest Speakers 2nd gen (2x lounge, 1x family room, 1x dining room)
1x Nest Hub Max 2nd gen (kitchen)
4x Nest Hubs 2nd gen (2x bedrooms, 1x home office, 1x study/hobby room)
2x Nest Speaker Mini 2nd gen (1x bathroom, 1x patio)
2x Nest Cam wired 3rd gen (not yet installed)
2x Tapo C210 wireless cameras (1x family room, 1x lounge - due to be swapped out for the new Google Nest Cams)
1x Tapo smart plug (security closet - used to turn the Tapo cameras on and off - will be removed when the cameras are)
My Wifi is a 6e Mesh network with 2 nodes and a singular SSID and password.

I do have other smart devices (such as roller shutters, TV, lights etc) but they are not pertinent to these issues.

I have 2 default routines that are at the heart of everything here: "Home" and "Away". "Away" switches the Nest Hub Max camera on and the Tapo smart plug on which, in turn, switches on the Tapo Cameras (after trying to use the Tapo app's presence sensing/geo-fencing I gave up as it seemed to be fighting with Google Home). "Home" does the opposite; it turns off the Nest Hub Max camera and switches off the Tapo smart switch, which then turns off the Tapo cameras.

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Issue 1:
I started out with all my devices being used for presence sensing, including my phone (I previously had a Note 9, I now have an S24+. I have also deleted the Note 9 from the Home account, so that can be ruled out as a cause). This would frequently result in GH thinking I was home, presumably because I left the TV or music on for the dogs or the dogs were barking or noise from next door was loud enough that it triggered at least 1 device to think someone was home. This would result in the "Away" routine not triggering in the first place (and thusnone of my cameras turning on) or it would cause the "Home" to trigger as it determined that someone was home.

After struggling with this for weeks, I changed the way my "Away" routine triggered by deactivating location tracking on other home automation apps (such as Grid Connect) and setting the presence sensing to only use my phone (as it is always in my pocket when I'm out of the house). This seemed to solve the issue for a while. I've also since got rid of Grid Connect and am now using completely new cameras with Tapo.

Issue 2:
The opposite of Issue 1. I come home, and the presence sensing won't turn the cameras off. Quite awkward when I don't initially notice and then I strip off and prance around the house in the nuddy for the next 30 odd mins only to then notice the activity lights shining on the cameras!

After struggling with this, I set the presence sensing to use all devices again. This seemed to solve the issue for a while, too.

Both issues 1 and 2 still occur with infrequent regularity - it'll work fine for a period of time and then go mental for a period of time. I've just had it happen again today as I went to the post office and the house status was still set to "Home" so my "Away" routine didn't trigger and only the Hub Max camera came on but not my Tapo smart plug or cameras. Back to only using the phone as the sole presence marker for now.

EDIT: The last 24 hours, since writing the original post, it's been going absolutely bananas.

Example 1 - Last night (13/01), GH suddenly decides my phone is away, then sets GH status to "Away" and triggers the "Away" routine (even though I'm in the house with my phone!). All the cameras (Google and Tapo) come on. I then manually adjust my phone location to "Home". Google cameras turn off but the GH status stubbornly remains set to "Away" (Tapo cameras and smart plug remain on as a result of the "Away" routine having triggered earlier). I manually set GH to "Home" and now everything turns off again...and remains that way till this morning when I went out.

Example 2 - I head out on an early errand run this morning (14/01); when I check, I'm a good few kms from my home. GH shows phone presence as "Away", Hub Max camara is on but GH status is "Home" and Tapo smart plug and cameras are off, as "Away" routine has not triggered. I manually set house to "Away", triggering "Away" routine; Tapo smart plug and cameras turn on. I return home later on and everything turns off (GH sets to "Home" triggering "Home" routine) as expected and phone location shows as Home.

Issue 3:
In the last couple of months, my phone location (in GH presence sensing) has started to randomly change to "Away" when I'm home, or "Home" when I'm away. It'll happen sometimes in the middle of the night, while I'm using the computer (like I am right now), if I'm sitting watching TV, if I'm in the car, if I'm at work or at the shops... There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.

A real-time example is just an hour or so ago, where I was using my phone (I was even in the GH app!), while sitting at my home-office desk, and the GH app randomly decided my phone was "Away". I immediately got a ping from the Hub Max in my kitchen, that the camera had detected motion (either one of the dogs had walked past the doorway or the shadows in the room changed because the blinds moved in the breeze - this is very common when I'm away from home as well, but that's an issue for another thread).

The main problem here is that I'm apparently the Google Home version of Schrodinger's cat at this point...I'm both Home and Away at the same time...and this is where it gets weird, as only part of the system seems to trigger. The GH app says I'm "Home", but when I check presence sensing, it says my phone's location is "Away". When I check what Google Maps (on my phone) thinks my location is, it says I'm at home.

In this instance, the "Away" routine has not triggered, so my Tapo smart plug and Tapo cameras have not turned on. However, the Google Hub Max in the kitchen has (and, presumably, if I had my 2 new Google Wired Cams installed, they would have turned on too).

I've also observed the opposite to be true, where I'll be genuinely "Away" at work, and the GH app has my phone presence as "Home".

Now, before anyone starts suggesting things to try, here is the list of things I have already done to try and solve this:

* I have disconnected my Tapo app, from GH, and reconnected it.
* I have removed devices from the GH app and reconnected them.
* I have uninstalled the GH app and reinstalled it.
* I have tried resetting devices to factory settings.
* I have checked all permissions for the GH app on my phone, ensuring it has "all-the-time" access to location services and is not power or data limited.
* I have ensured the location services on my phone are set to run whenever it likes and are not power or data-limited.
* I have my home WiFi network added to presence sensing for my phone.
* I have precise location data enabled.
* I have tried limiting presence-sensing to just my phone, all devices and my phone and a combination of devices (such as only the hubs or only the speakers)
* I've even gone to Gemini and asked for help (https://gemini.google.com/share/d0da6955e9a8). I'm currently testing a notification based on presence sensing my phone, to try and narrow down what is happening to trigger it. EDIT 2: The notification is a fail, so far, as it just tells me that "Away" routine has triggered but I'm not getting any other useful feedback on what has caused it.

Over to you, Google.

Re: Home or Away, that is the question!

sicsacol — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 22:28:01 GMT

Hi @EviLEwoK666,

Thanks for posting in the community. I'm sorry to hear that you're having difficulties using the Home and Away feature with your smart devices. I understand this situation is concerning since your cameras aren't consistently turning on for security or off for your privacy when you return home. I appreciate the detailed information you've shared regarding your new S24+ and the time you've taken to troubleshoot the Presence Sensing settings. Don't worry, I'd be more than glad to share more details with you.

Our team is aware of this Home and Away behavior, and it is currently being investigated. Because this is a known issue under review, it's possible that standard troubleshooting steps through the community forums may not lead to a successful resolution at this time. To ensure you get the most up-to-date information and direct assistance as the investigation continues, I recommend reaching out to our support team directly by using the following link: Contact Us. They have the tools to look deeper into your specific account and provide the best path forward.

I hope this information helps.

Cheers,
Jonathan

Re: Home or Away, that is the question!

EviLEwoK666 — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 03:34:36 GMT

Thanks I'll try that and see how things go.

Re: Home or Away, that is the question!

EviLEwoK666 — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 03:05:56 GMT

Just replying with some additional info and screenshots for reference.

This is from Sunday 18/01:

These show my presence sensing settings and the activity showing it randomly changing to away while I'm home etc as well as me having to manually change the status to get it to run the correct routine. I left the house around 130pm and returned just after 3pm...you can then see the shenanigans that ensued from there.

Today, 22/01, I left for work around 8:15. You can see the activity showing my phone as away. Finally, after 2 hours, the app decides no one is home and finally switches to Away. 🙄

Speakers (and Hubs) are not supposed to be using ambient noise to indicate presence...The dogs don't bark much either so that should also be discounted. Hubs are deliberately not included in presence sensing as I've read that the motion sensors can trigger false positives and cause it to think I'm Away when I'm just in another room that doesn't have a motion sensor. TV is also not included as I routinely leave the TV on for the dogs (they like watching sleep and ducks 🤣

Re: Home or Away, that is the question!

EviLEwoK666 — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 03:04:59 GMT

Another day, another update where the Home app finally decides to start my Away routine 2 hours after I leave home. Note that further down the activity list, at 09:20 and 09:21 you can see the camera on the Hub Max has detected motion...which means it is switched on, which means that the system knows I'm away and that it should turn the cameras on. Seems that whatever bug is causing these shenanigans atm, Google cameras appear to not be affected, but any 3rd party device relying on the Home status to operate a routine don't and the Home app will get around to changing the status sometime later...

Away or Home, that is still the question

So, once again, we have a Schrodinger's experience here as, according to Google Home App, I am both at home and away at the same time.

Re: Home or Away, that is the question!

EviLEwoK666 — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 03:04:42 GMT

Another update, this time with added shenanigans and still no response from Google Nest support.
Went out this morning, it took the Home app over and hour to decide to switch to Away even after noting my phone had left.

I got home this afternoon and it went mental for the next couple of hours...and pretty much the entire time I was either in the kitchen making dinner, or in the lounge watching the TV. The phone spent the entire time sitting on the couch not moving.

It's been behaving itself since the last incident just before 1800 this evening.

Re: Home or Away, that is the question!

EviLEwoK666 — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 03:08:57 GMT

One interesting thing to note it that since originally posting this thread, I've noticed that the app reacts correctly when I arrive home (whether it goes bananas later on, or not, is a different thing), just not when I leave. it's also been relatively stable once I'm home for the last couple of days until today where the post above shows it going loopy.

Re: Home or Away, that is the question!

EviLEwoK666 — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 03:04:11 GMT

On todays episode, I'm sitting watching the TV when suddenly my phone pings to say the Hub Max camera (in the Kitchen) has detected movement...(checking the video playback reveals absolutely nothing - maybe the light changed a bit?).

Anyway the point here is that, on review of the Activity log (screenshot attached below), you can see the app noting my phone's presence changed to to Away at 842am...then at 924am the app decides that everyone left, and the app then sets the Away status and the Away routine starts, turning on my (non) Google cameras etc.

Problem here is, I'm still at home...I haven't gone anywhere. I manually change my phone's presence back to Home and everything reverts to Home status and the cameras switch off.

So, what does this tell us? Well, When I check what the phone thinks it's location is, on Google Maps, I can see it's location moving around slightly (even moving so far as my neighbours house at one point) as a combination of GPS, cell tower, bluetooth and WiFi is used to give precise location data.

Is that the cause of this increasingly weird behaviour over the last month? I have seen the position bork out and be wildly off course once of twice but, in those instances, I've been traveling in the car and well away from home in somewhat spotty cell coverage areas...so, I'd say no, as the current behaviour has not been happening the entire time I have owned this phone (Samsung S24+ - had since July 2024).

That being said, maybe some recent OS software update from Samsung has had an impact on the way that the phone detects its location? I don't know. That is for soft engineering types at Google and Samsung to figure out.

Anyway, I'll continue to keep this post as a running log in the hopes that the info/data is helpful to the dev teams.

Re: Home or Away, that is the question!

EviLEwoK666 — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 03:03:28 GMT

New update covering nearly the last week:

Tuesday (27th) and Wednesday (28th) I was working from home the entire time and didn't go out at all...normal operation, no funny business:

Thursday (29th), I was in the office, so left the house around 08:24 and got home again at 17:40...All seemed fine until 4 minutes after I got home, my phone's location suddenly switches Away and then back to Home again...and then the same thing again at 22:14/22:15 (when I was in bed!)...WHY?

Friday (30th), I left early for an appointment...almost 40 minutes later the Home app finally decides to change to Away routine...

Saturday (31st), I left home at 08:08 and Home app took 2 hours to decide to switch to Away routine....WHY? Got home just after 15:00...no more shenanigans for the rest of the day.

Sunday (1st Feb). Mum arrived at 09:44...Phone location changes to Away, randomly, at 10:37, activating Away routine. I manually change it back to Home at 10:40 and app switches back to Home routine.

At 11:05 I pop out on a quick errand. Phone location changes to Away, app activates Away routine...Phone location changes to Home then back to Away again a minute later... I return again at 11:34.

At 16:17 I go shopping. Phone Away, App switches to Away. I return at 16:59, everything switches back to Home...no more shenanigans for the rest of the day.

Re: Home or Away, that is the question!

EviLEwoK666 — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 01:43:40 GMT

Been a busy few days, so only getting around to update this again now. As you can see by the dates, the issues are sporadic. It'll be fine for a few days then we have shenanigans for a couple...Been relatively stable since last week but Thursday 5th and Sunday 8th we had shenanigans.

As you can see here, and unbeknownst to me as I was heading to bed, at 23:33 it suddenly decided my phone was away and switched to Away...and stayed that way until it suddenly decided that I was home again just as I got up! Interesting to note that the Hub Max detected motion in the kitchen at 01:35...LOL

Worked fine all day. I got home from shopping at at 19:33...

Then the stupid started at 21:38 as I was going to bed....seriously, WTF Google?

Re: Home or Away, that is the question!

EviLEwoK666 — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 07:18:18 GMT

So this issue is just continuing to occur at random times and always when I'm at home.

The pattern that seems to be showing is that the app seems to act like my phone's location suddenly glitches or jumps, almost like the GPS has a random seizure. Each time I've been able to immediately respond and check my position (because I have set an automation to ping my phone when it sets to Away) Google Maps shows my location always within <5 meters of my actual position but shows a blue circle of uncertainty (out to about 20m) that slowly shrinks as the phone refines what it senses my position to be (presumably using wifi, bluetooth and the internal GPS).

The problem still remains, however, that the app does not immediately revert my phone's presence to "Home" nor does it switch back to "Home" routine. I'm consistently forced to manually switch my phone's presence back to Home and then also forced to manually set the app to Home as well, to get it to switch back to "Home" routine. The only time I've seen it happen automatically, it literally took 6 hours to decide I was home again even though I had been in bed the entire time with the phone on the nightstand next to me.

So far, I've been less than thrilled with Google Support's response (my ticket was submitted 22/01):

1. They took 6 days (28/01) to initially respond...only to ask me if I was the only person signed into the app...I've read back over this thread (which I have referenced for them several times) and while I don't explicitly say it, it is pretty clear that I'm the only person on the Home account.
2. The next response from them took 15 days (12/02)...where they then they suggested steps that I had clearly said, in this thread, I had already taken, plus another step involving a device I don't even have! (a Nest thermostat). Smacked of a "copy & paste" response to me.
3. 5 days on (17/02), they then ask me for the full name of my Nest device (which one?!?!?) and it's serial number, completely ignoring my question (in my response to their previous email) about why they were asking me about a device I clearly don't have.
4. My latest reply (17/02) has again asked them why they gave me directions for a (thermostat) device I don't own and asks them which of my 11 nest devices they are talking about.

In each response instance, I have replied to their emails the same day they have been received...

Re: Home or Away, that is the question!

EviLEwoK666 — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 07:28:16 GMT

So, I got another response from Support today.

If you ever needed proof that people simply don't read things properly anymore, this is a perfect example:

"... because we assumed you were using a Nest Learning Thermostat, which utilizes motion sensors to trigger Home/Away Assist."

You know what they say about assuming things...

Anyway, on the plus side, apparently my case is now being escalated to the "senior support team" for further investigation.

Re: Home or Away, that is the question!

EviLEwoK666 — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 06:08:53 GMT

Random update. My ticket has, apparently, been "escalated to senior support".

Also, apparently, senior support is too good to come read this thread - the first thing they asked the lower support person to do was forward me a bunch of questions that would ahve been answered had they just sent 5 minutes reading this thread that I gave them the link to...

Anyway, screen shots from the last 3 incidents (in order): Sat Feb 28th, Mon March 2nd and Wed March 4th. Each time I've either been going to bed or have just arrived home.

Screenshots, from Saturday 28th Feb and Wednesday 4th March.
In each, you can see the phone position just suddenly changes to Away (in both instances, as I'm going to bed). In both instances, all I have done is move from one part of the house to another.

In this one from Monday 2nd March, I went out at 12:11pm and came back about an hour later. I arrived home and the system didn't react. The music was still playing and the cameras were still in when I got in the house, so I had to manually correct it....and then some 8 minutes later it glitched out and said I'd left again, so I had to manually correct it again.

Seriously, given what we pay for the Nest sub etc, this is pretty p*** poor service. And they have the cheek to ask us to pay even more to add the AI stuff!