Presence sensing not working

[Drewbacca]

First, some background: I have a 3rd generation Nest Learning Thermostat with an account that has been migrated to Google. I also have multiple Kasa smart plugs. I wasn’t satisfied with the home/away assist in the Nest app so I’ve always used the Presence Sensing in the Google Home app. I have an iPhone 13 Pro and my wife has an iPhone 12 Pro. We also have some Nest Protects setup in the house.

Recently the Presence Sensing has not been working consistently with Google Home. I get to work and my devices at home still think I’m there, and my device at work thinks I’m away. It’s random when it works and when it doesn’t. I noticed it happening more often after updating to the latest iOS version, which had a new feature called Focus, that lets you customize automatic toggling of the Do Not Disturb function on the phone. I was worried the Driving focus that switches on when I connect to my car was interfering with it. I made sure Nest, Google Home, and IFTTT all were permitted in every DND focus, but that didn’t seem to help. I then removed all the focuses, but it still isn’t working consistently. I checked both of our phones, and location is toggled to Always on with both of them. I’m getting really frustrated as my heating unit is running all day long at a time when the weather is getting colder. Is this a bug in the latest update to the Google Home app? Is anyone else having new issues with it?

[Stranix]

I've the same issue with presence sensing. Yesterday my phone "came home" but never left. Today after I updated to iOS 15.1 (from 14) it won't trigger any home/away at all.

I tried to restart my iPhone, force update when I'm away, reset presence sensing and nothing worked.

[Drewbacca]

I continue to have the issue despite calling support, reinstalling the app on both phones, and deleting presence history. Again, this has been a recent change as the app has worked perfectly for the last couple years. However, the errors are starting to cost me money and requiring me to manually change things nearly every day, defeating the purpose of a “smart” system. My only hope right now is that the “bug fixes” in the 2.47.111 update to the app that came out today specifically address this.

[hy961201]

Was this fixed for you? I’m still experiencing inconsistencies, and it was working fine until early December.

[Drewbacca]

No, it is still not fixed. I tried stopping using Presence Sensing in the Google Home app and went back to Home/Away Assist with the Nest app. The problem with getting help with Presence Sensing is that Google does not have dedicated support for the Google Home app. Yes, they have support for Google Home (the device) and Google Nest, but not for the app. At one point support had sent me to both customer supports for those, and also to the support for the Google Play store. Every one of them said that they don't cover the app and to try one of the others. It was very frustrating. The Home/Away Assist in the Nest app doesn't work either. It works on some days, but not on others, just like the Presence Sensing.

To be honest, I'd rather control the Home and Away functions for either app with whether our phones are connected.  It should be possible to just see up it to say we're Home if one our phones is connected to the network and away if none of them are. Who cares about using GPS? I haven't figured out how to do that yet.

[Simjack]

My presence aware keeps turning my phone location off every hour or so and affects Google home app and Nest app. 
What’s up with this crap?

[scotchman]

I was experiencing the same issue, and believe it was due to a Nest App / Home App conflict. To resolve I set presence sensing & home away routines in the Home App. Then turned off presence sensing in the Nest App, & completely signed out of the Nest App. Once I did everything started to work properly.

[portlando]

@scotchman  I agree that this is what may be happening. For me, when i confirm the linked phones in the Nest app,  it unlinks them in the Home app - and vise versa. I will try to lout out of the Nest app as you did and see if that works. 

[ShelleF]

Tried that in suggestion a couple months ago and it did nothing. This has been an off and on problem over the last 2 years.

[MrGoogle]

Thank you.  Your post reminded me to check the Nest app and its Home Away Assist, What Decides if you're home showed "previous phone"  Updated to current phone and Google Home cameras stopped alerting me when I was home.

[Goglesuks]

The simple answer, it’s not Apple. You shouldn’t expect this **bleep** to work if it’s Google or Amazon

[atalukdar]

And that's why you are **bleep**ing out your opinions for free on a Google forum, right? Because absolutely no one at Apple gives **bleep** about your opinions? 

If you have nothing constructive to contribute, get off the pot.

[McG-Katonah]

I've been having the same problem lately with my Nest 3rd gen thermo.  Total PITA.  Waste of fuel.

[CJSnet]

This is utterly ridiculous. Google please get your act together. you have two apps for one thing and they’re both fighting against each other for this feature. It even says I’m using presence sensing on a different iPhone when I only have one iPhone, it means a different app.

Everyone please send feedback from the Google Home app.

Google is too big for their own good and completely fragmented as always. Sigh. 

[Simjack]

Google should fix this, absolutely. Signing out of Nest got the Google app presence sensing working. I can use the Google app to control what I need but I am retired and disabled so I am home most all the time. The Nest app seems to be for people that work and want their Nest app to turn the thermostat to the Eco mode while they are away.

The frustrating thing for me is that there is no operating manual for the system so you are on your own except for the user forum.

I have a doorbell, another camera and the little tv plus the thermostat so it is an expensive system to not have an instruction book 😡

[gabriel3590]

I don't have the nest app. Just Google home but presence sensing never works. My routine just keeps running as if I'm home all day

[Tgallag]

Quit working for me too. Signing out of the nest app did no good☹️

[gabriel3590]

I've done everything. Deleting presence sensing history, resetting the app, reinstalling, clearing cache, toggling the presence setting button on and off, tried controlling using Samsung Smart devices but even that does not sync well with the thermostat so can't use it to control it either, even went ahead to replace the hardware. Nothing works and worse off google don't see to have a fix. They keep offering solutions that don't work. I've seen a good number of people with the same issue. Unfortunately can't find a fix anywhere. 

[Simjack]

I don’t use the Nest App. Only Google app. I also turn off my thermostat home aware. I set my thermostat to 70 for heat and 78 for cool.

The presence aware shows my location at the location of my phone as it should. 

What I have done is take routine out of the equation which means I am only using half of the supposed system capability.

Crap is an understatement.

[portlando]

here is what finally worked for me. I reset my Nest Thermostat. You have to do this on the actual thermostat settings.  After doing so, I went through the set up again, added the device to my Google Home app, and set up the presence settings. cc @Simjack  @gabriel3590 

[Tgallag]

I was able to get it going, at least for now, by toggling "use phone location" in Home /Away Assist in the nest app.  I stumbled there by accident and there was a warning stating that it had not heard from my phone for a few days.

[jaychis]

I was having the same issue. Presence detection wasn't working despite everything I tried. I turned it off and on, I reset Presence detection, restarted my Google Home, restarted my wifi, etc. I  didn't even think about Nest. I'm not sure if it was because of an update, but my "use phone location" was turned off. I turned it on and everything was back to normal. 

[atalukdar]

I just started having the same problem about three weeks ago.  Presence sensing used to throw a notification every time I either left home or returned home.  No more.  Now there is no notification and the Home/Away status does not change based on my phone location.  I read some of these posts and signed out of and deleted my Nest App - no dice.  And it is not that Google doesn't know where I am.  When I go into Settings to configure the "Home" in the Home App, on the map it does show the correct location.  So, there is clearly  something in the Google backend that has changed and Presence Sensing is now broken.  And now that they largely and successfully elbowed IFTTT out of the automation landscape, they have no competition for this feature in the Google echo system to really care.  So I am not hopeful for a fix soon.

[homedevsrdumb]

google developers are a joke. everyone knows this. that's why they work for google. lmfao.

[Markp]

Same issue. Home app will tell me I am using a different device and to switch to "this phone" yet its this phone my Google home and nest app run on. Both presensing and home /away set up within both apps as it states within Google only one app will trigger the actions which ever app is open. So I figure it's going to work ethier way. In the beginning a couple months ago it seemed to work. If there's been some kind of update it now no longer does. In home app it detects correct location when asking me to reset the hone location. Very annoying. How I have to get in habit to check and enable it myself. Also noticed a new thing when waking up in morning it states my phone wasn't detected so auto switched to away.... So why doesn't it do this when I actually go away from home 😱😂 

[PocyHake]

Same here, keep getting the switch to "this phone" thing. Support just told me to reset everything, didn't work.

[Markp1]

Nest app > disable location and use this device in the home away assist menu. Go play store update home app.

Launch presence sensing and set up. All should work. A conflict between the apps it would seem. Doing this I've now got it working as it should. 

[atalukdar]

Thanks, but I don't have the nest app. I uninstalled it after reading several posts suggesting that as a solution (it wasn't).  Are you suggesting reinstalling the nest app?

[Markp1]

That's interesting as I use the nest app still to view my cameras and home only for events and actions. I'd perhaps install it incase it's somehow saved settings in the cloud or such and disable the location use and disable the device use within the menu of nest app. Double check your home app is upto date and that presence sensing as location and use this device set... If there was a conflict I found when I clicked presence sensing in home app it would treat it as me configuring it from scratch. Hope this helps you. 

[atalukdar]

I just did exactly that. I'll find out tomorrow at morning if it works.  Thank you for the suggestion. 

[gabriel3590]

Let us know if it works. Thanks @Markp1 

[gabriel3590]

This worked!! Thanks a bunch

[atalukdar]

Sorry, I forgot to update. Yes this worked.  I also realized that previously it was the Nest but app that was doing the presence sensing because I would get a notification. Now that Nest presence sensing is disabled, Google Home presence sensing simply works in the background. Thanks a bunch!