Presence detection

[Volvoholic]

Hello, I use Google Home (with my wife in the same house) with the automations and presence detection for switching devices on and off at home. It works wonderfully for me with the Pixel 6. However, my wife with the Pixel 8 cannot activate the function. There is an error message saying that it is currently not working with the smartphone... the exact wording is: An error has occurred. The current location of your smartphone cannot be determined. When I press the button to activate it, a short message appears: cannot update the settings, try again later. What is set incorrectly or is not working properly?

[ByronP]

Hi Volvoholic,

Thank you for reaching out to the community. I'm sorry that the presence detection with your wife's Pixel 8 phone is unable to activate. I understand how frustrating this can be. I'm here to help.

For the geofence to enable presence sensing to work properly, you'll need to make sure that:

• You've set up Home and Away Routines in the Home app.
• You've enabled your phone in presence sensing settings in the Home app.
• You've set location permissions for the Home app on your phone to always on.
• Everyone in your household has enabled their phones in presence sensing settings in the Home app on their own phones.

Also, please do the following:

Turn presence sensing on or off:

1. Open the Google Home app on your wife's phone.
2. Tap Settings.
3. In the "Home features" section, tap Presence sensing.
4. Tap the switch next to Allow this home to use phone locations and try to turn it off then on.

You can also turn off just an individual phone from being used for presence sensing.

Let me know how it goes and keep me posted.

Regards,

Byron

[Volvoholic]

Hello ByronP,

thanks for the answer. I have already checked the settings several times and the pixel 8 does not have certain functions/settings. The settings are all OK except for the settings shown in the screenshot. Those are the only differences to my pixel 6.

• I can't find the settings.
• There is also an error message.
• When I try to activate it, the error message below appears.

Everything is OK on my pixel 6. 

I hope the screenshots help.

Thanks you again 

Regards 

Volvoholic

[ByronP]

Hi Volvoholic,

Thank you for your response and detailed information. I really appreciate the screenshots provided.

I just want to confirm a few additional questions:

• Where are you and your wife located?
• Is your wife a joining member or homeowner of the Google account for the Google Home app?

Keep me posted.

Regards,

Byron

[Volvoholic]

Dear ByronP,

everything was set up correctly and all admin/access permissions were granted. The problem was very simple. As you can see in the screenshot, the setup above (left top corner) needs to be activated, which was not completed. It's now done and everything works as it should.

 

Many thanks for your help.

Regards

Volvoholic

[ByronP]

Hi Volvoholic,

Thank you for posting. I'm glad that it was resolved. 

If you need any further help, don't hesitate to post it here.

Best regards,

Byron