Google Home App or Nest App to be setup to use phone's location?

[gpugliese]

I see this question has been asked many times but no direct answer has been given.  Obviously, we want both the Google Home App and the Nest App to use our phone's location for the Google Home App's Presence Sensing and the Nest App's Home Away Assist.  I have always had the setting done in the Nest App, however, I have been noticing many issues as of late.  Which app, the Google Home App or the Nest App should take control of using your phone's location?  When you set it in one, it appears to goes away from the other, but I assume there is some behind the scenes handshake between the two apps, allowing both apps to use your phones location.  

[Demonshaker]

Use Google home app. 

[MaltaCode]

I have the same problem. In the Google Home app, presence sensing has completely disappeared from my iPhone. I have searched everywhere but cannot find a helpful answer to where to turn this on in the app. My Google Home app has location settings set to "Always On," but still, in the app itself, I cannot set routines on presence triggers. I have been using Google Home for many years and have quite a few Google devices, such as Hubs, Speakers, and Camera, and I have invested quite a bit in this. Last year, the Google Home app became extremely buggy on my iPhone to the extent that I am looking to use something else.

[JuanCH]

Hi there!

Thanks for reaching out to the community! I understand you're experiencing some inconveniences between the Google Home and Nest apps' location services for Presence Sensing and Home/Away Assist even with location permissions set to Always On. I know how important it is having all your features in both apps working as expected. I'm here to help!

The Home app and Nest app work well together. You can use either app, or both.
No matter which app you use, the home is always in either Home or Away. If you switch your home using one app, that change will show up immediately in the other app.

To gather some more details, I'd like to ask the following questions:

• Are your Google Home and Nest app updated? Please check out the following link for your reference: Update Nest products and apps
• Have you shared your account sign-in credentials with a family member?

I'll be waiting to hear from you. Keep me in the loop!

Best regards,
Juan

[gpugliese]

Hi Juan,

Thanks for the response. This has to do with both the Google Home App and the Nest App using your phone's location.  In the Google Home App, this is set via the Presence sensing.  In the Nest App, this is set via the Home/Away Assist, "What decides if you're home".  Only one of these Apps can be set to use our phone's location.  You cannot set it in both apps.  If it is set in the Nest App and I then set it in the Google Home App, it will no longer be set in the Nest App and vice versa.  My question is, which app does Google prefer we set it in?  I have had it set in the Nest App since the Google Home App's Presence sensing was launched.  It has not been working well as of late.  I recently set it in the Google Home App's Presence sensing, and now it is working as expected.  It would be nice for Google to actually comment on this for once.  I am assuming it is now advised to set it in the Google Home App as it is appears Google is moving away from the Nest App.  I am assuming the Nest App will be deprecated in the near future.

[JuanCH]

Hi gpugliese,

Thanks for following up! The information you shared is greatly appreciated. I understand that Presence Sensing and Home/Away Assist are not synchronized between the Google Home and Nest app. If a setting is changed in the Nest app and then in the Google Home app, the Nest app's setting will be overridden, and vice versa. But when you just set the presence sensing in the Google Home app, it works as expected. I'll be glad to provide you with the information you need.

Your phone can only use geofence from one app at a time. When you enable geofence in one app, it will be automatically disabled in the other app.
Some settings are specific to each app. Please check out the following link to learn about these settings: Home & Away Routines

Enabling presence sensing on the Google Home app will apply to all Google Nest devices linked to your account, though some settings may be device-specific.

If you have any other questions please don't hesitate to post them on this forum.

Best regards,
Juan.

[gpugliese]

Thanks.  I will continue to have the Google Home App's Presence sensing utilize our phone locations instead of the Nest App.

[JuanCH]

Hi gpugliese,

Thanks for following up! I appreciate you taking the time to enable the Google Home app's Presence Sensing to utilize your phone location. 

If you experience any other inconvenience, feel free to post again. 

Best regards,
Juan