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Presence sensing not working with latest Android app update

DaveBZ
Community Member

I have a Galaxy S21 Ultra, Google Home speaker from around 2019, Lifx bulbs, Bond home for ceiling fans, Lenovo clock and ecobee 3 lite thermostat.  My automated home and away routines no longer work.  When I tell Google that I'm leaving, it tells me that "One or more devices are disconnected, try setting them up again".  I have reset the app twice and still not getting the feature to work.  Is there a server issue or application bug?

15 REPLIES 15

rhammond84
Community Member

Getting the same issue, despite clearing data and setting app up on both phones again.

No presence/location updates are shown in the Google Home App history for just over a week now. 

DaveBZ
Community Member

I suppose it's a bug that was overlooked while the Dev team was updating the app.  We'll just have to wait for another update and see if it's patched.

Kenbofa
Community Member

I'm in a very similar boat. Lifx bulbs and wyze plugs. For nearly a year everything has been great with the home and away routines. After a couple weeks ago none of the presence sensing works, I manually have to switch home and away. Really with the automation would work. I noticed when I go into the presence sensing option,as the screen slides in I can physically see the "allow this home to use phone location" slider switch over from the off position into the on position without me doing anything. 

russr1123
Community Member

I have the same issue, I'm guessing that one of the recent updates made this feature completely useless.  It seems that the Home app just does not use the phone's location and properly update the Home/Away routines based on location.  This takes a lot of the automation out of the smart home.

I'm a little glad to hear that I'm not the only one. I'm not sure why it's happening. I know I can manually switch just not automated which is the whole point. In the meantime I've discovered an app made by Google called Google Action blocks. You can basically set up icon tiles for your launcher that do the actions that any Google assistant feature would do. So now on my home screen I have a button for home and a button for away. Not quite as nice as the phone auto locating and changing the settings but it's better than having to go all the way into the app and manually switch. 

rhammond84
Community Member

Looks to be fixed in latest app release

What part is fixed?  My issue has been that the Google Home App itself doesn't seem to switch to Home/Away based on location even when it has the right permissions and battery optimizations are turned off for the app.

That part. In app version 2.50.1.8

Cool, I just downloaded it cleared the cache/data and re-set up the presence location and sure enough, it switched it.  But what happens if you have two family members and one is home and one is not?  Shouldn't it only switch it if both are not home?

DaveBZ
Community Member

It's still not working for me.  I guess I have to uninstall it, soft reset and try again.  If it isn't working this time, I'm switching EVERYTHING to Alexa.  I'll have to buy a new speaker for the living room and an Echo Show for the bedroom.

russr1123
Community Member

Just do what I did with the home app and make sure to set up the location presence sensing again in the app.

DaveBZ
Community Member

It worked fine for a few weeks.  Looks like it's lost my phone yet again.  I guess I'll have to switch to Alexa.

Azarco
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey DaveBZ,

 

Thanks for reaching out and sorry for the delayed response.

 

A quick question: were there any recent changes on your network or set up? 


There might be a chance that you're other devices are not compatible with the Home and Away Routines. These are the supported devices:

  • Third-party lights, plugs or switches
  • Nest thermostats
  • Nest Cameras
  • Nest Hub Max
  • Nest Hello

Could you try clearing all the routines you've created and create a new one with only the lights first to check if you'll get the same result?

 

Looking forward for your response.

 

Thanks,

Alex

Azarco
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey there,

 

Just want to check if clearing all your routines work? 

 

Best,

Alex

Azarco
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey DaveBZ,

 

Just checking in to make sure that you saw my response. I'll be locking this thread if we won't hear back from you again in 24 hrs. Should that happen, feel free to create a new one if you have more questions or have other concerns in the future.

 

Kind regards,

Alex