[Install Instructions] webCoRE Presence Sensor on your Android (beta)

[Tvallthetime]

I installed the DH And I connect an iPhone 7, a Note 8, and a Pixel XL running 8.1 android. None of them has gone past showing present at home. I have numerous locations setup besides home, and tried going into them last night but none of the 3 ever showed up leaving our home. Anyone have any ideas?

[btrial]

I am asking about Android app, not Android data handler.

[borristhecat]

The android app is on the play store and the app store, but you also need the DH installed as well for it to work.

[borristhecat]

have you also installed the app and followed in installation instructions?

UPDATE 2017-10-18

SmartThings has fixed the bug that would delete the parent SmartApp when the last child device would be deleted. It is now safe to install your presence sensors into your main (and most likely the only?) webCoRE instance you installed. As a result, I have opened the Android beta to anyone who wants to test.

Please note this is a beta product and requires that you request an invitation. Google requires that you provide a gmail or Google Apps email address as part of the process. You will need to visit a link after your email address has been entered in the test group. The Android app is in its infancy and a lot of visual issues may be present. Location is updated when there is a change of at least 10m and not more often than 1 minute - this will change later to about 500m and 5 minutes to preserve device battery.

Steps to install the webCoRE Presence Sensor

Install and publish the DTH

Login to your IDE and go to the My Device Handlers tab.

if you installed webCoRE using the github integration, click on Update from Repo and select webCoRE (master) from the list. Select the webCoRE Presence Sensor from the list, make sure to check Publish, then click Execute Update

if you installed webCoRE using the source code, you need to add and publish a new DTH from code. Find the source code here.
Ensure the webCoRE Presence Sensor is now listed in your My Device Handlers list and is marked as Published.

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IMPORTANT - Update the smart apps and DTH

Please make sure to update the Smart Apps and the DTH to the latest - this is required for the Android app to work. The webCoRE version has been preserved to avoid having everyone update.

Install a blank instance of webCoRE (strongly recommended)

This step is recommended because there is currently a feature of SmartThings that silently deletes a SmartApp instance when the user deletes the last child device. That means that adding a presence sensor to your main webCoRE instance and then deleting it from the ST app or IDE will silently and irrevocably delete that webCoRE instance along with all of its child apps (pistons). SmartThings is working on improving this feature and this step will no longer be required when that is done. Until then, it is just safer if you use a blank webCoRE instance for presence purposes as you do not risk any pistons. Go to your ST app and visit the Marketplace, go to My apps and install webCoRE the same way you did the first time - choose a name that’s different than your main instance’s name so that you can tell them apart, choose a password, don’t worry about adding any available devices or contacts, just tap Next, Next, Next, Done. A new (and blank) instance of webCoRE should now exist in your Automations > SmartApps tab.

Add places using a desktop browser (optional - you can do this in step 6 by using the webCoRE app on your phone, it is just easier to use a desktop browser)

If you haven’t done so yet, visit https://dashboard.webcore.co and register a new instance (click on the Options and Register another instance). Open the webCoRE instance in your ST app and tap Register a browser. Use the code provided in your browser and click Register - you are now logged into the new instance - you can switch between the instances by clicking the instance dropdown at the top left of the interface. Go to Settings and then Places.

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Click on the + button to add a place, if you allowed the browser access to your location, it should default that place to your current location, if not, pan to the right location and click there, the marker should move in the right place.

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The two circles default to 100m and 500m radii. Try to keep a good separation between the two for best results and less fake alerts. The minimum inner circle radius is 50m and the minimum separation between the circles is 200m. Give that place a name and click Save. Keep adding as many places as you need (up to 10). One of them (by default the first one) can be set as home by clicking the Set as home button. Only the home place will be driving the presence attribute of the sensor - the others provide other events for you to know when someone is arriving, has arrived, is leaving or has left each of them.

When done, click Apply to save all changes.

Request a Google Play Store invitation

Send @ady624 a PM with the following information (fill in the blanks). Make sure to provide a gmail or Google Apps email address - you will need to login with it when following the opt-in link.

Platform: Android

Email address:

Install the webCoRE app

Visit the opt-in link here after you email address has been added to the test group. Become a tester and a link will be provided to install the app.

KNOWN ISSUE - it appears that setting up the sensor does NOT work the first time around - clicking does nothing. Kill the app and open it again to fix this. I am looking into what is causing this.

Set up the presence sensor

Open the webCoRE app and follow the same instructions from step 3 to register the newly installed webCoRE instance. If you skipped step 3, you will need to add the places at this time. Once you have at least one place added to the list, a green button should appear with the Setup sensor caption. Tap on it and you will get a dialog asking you to provide a name - this is the ST device name for the new presence sensor. Add a name, making sure it is easy to distinguish for any other existing devices you have in ST (i.e. add (beta) at the end of the name) and click Save. The green button should now disappear from the list. When it does, click Apply to close that window. A new device should now be present in your ST app - it’s your brand new presence sensor.

Make the presence sensor available to your pistons

If you took the advice on step 2 and installed the sensor in a new and blank webCoRE instance, you need to visit your primary instance in the ST app and go to Settings > Available devices > Sensors and add the newly created presence sensor to the list so your main webCoRE instance can access it. By default, the webCoRE instance used to create the presence sensor will automatically gain access to them so you don’t have to add the sensors to the available devices list, but remember you installed the sensors in a different instance.

The newly created presence sensors should automatically be available in your pistons belonging to the same webCoRE instance (most users only use one instance, so they should simply have the sensors available, no need to revisit the Available Devices)

Pretend you need to go buy something just to test how it works

Grab your keys and leave with your ST app open Look awkward as you walk down the street with your eyes pinned to your phone. You know what to do next.

[flyize]

I just opted into the beta and it says the app was last updated 10/18/17. Is that correct?

[borristhecat]

This is correct.

@ady624 over the last few weeks the webCore app has been crashing and android has been closing it down. Its now logging it as a issue on the device, has anything changed in the phones?

[Filoor]

I want to update my piston state if i’m connected with my wifi.
But also leave it on automatic
But if i do that i’m getting

1/17/2018, 10:12:07 AM +319ms
+144ms	║Cannot set the piston state while in automatic mode. Please edit the piston settings to 
disable the automatic piston state if you want to manually control the state.

[c1arkbar]

You cant update the piston state manually if you do not disable automatic piston state.

If you have a concern about taking away the automatic control for the piston state I hope I can ease your mind by saying all this does is say true/false based on whether the piston evaluated to true or false. You can essentially disable automatic piston state and never set a piston state and your piston will be unaffected by this.

[PrometheusXex]

So far so good. I’ve installed the webCoRE app on my Galaxy S7, my wife’s S8 and on my daughters’ android-based Blackberry. Unfortunately I’m finding that my wife’s Galaxy S8 is having issues with the webCoRE presence sensor. The SmartThings app says she left home at 7:15am, but WC says she left at 8:04am. ST and WC have the same 7:14am time for my departure time. The same applies when she’s arriving home. I’ve set the circle home zone to 130m… so that shouldn’t be it.

I’ve made the same battery optimization setting to both ST and WC on her phone… why the big time difference? Perhaps I’m missing a settings step for her S8?

[t34wrj]

I’m struggling to make this work… I’ve followed the instructions without any errors but the device in the SmartThings app shows ‘Arrived at 23.07 on 01/08/18’ and does not change. Any thoughts?

[borristhecat]

Click the cog and make sure the bottom option is set to automatic and not force present

[jrfarrar]

I uninstalled and re-installed and this I have this same problem now. I was finally wanting to move the presence sensor over to my main webcore instance. I tried just registering it with my other instance but it did nothing. (edit: It did add the device and I do see the new device in Smartthings) So I removed the device and uninstalled webcore on the phone. Reinstalled webcore, added it to my main instance. Now I see no updates or changes anywhere. Just shows me as arrived. Even if I manually set myself to “not present” nothing changes. No log entries in smartthings for the device and nothing on the device itself.

So the new device did add. I was able to go into the app and setup the “name” of the device and hit apply. The name changed in smartthings. But no updates of any kind.

[t34wrj]

It is set to Automatic.

[sangweb]

Hi experts, can we programmatically write a piston to tells us when the sensor arriving/leave the places that we’ve created? I want to write a piston to notify me when the presense sensor arrive or leave a specific location I’ve created. TIA.

[jrfarrar]

This I can help with…even though my sensor isn’t working at the moment.

As an example when you create an if statement. Select your new presence sensor. Then in the dropdown box you will see a whole new list of options. arriving at, currently, etc. In your case “arriving at” then changes to, and enter the name of your custom place.

[sangweb]

Ok, Thanks. Let me try to see how it goes. Do I need to set any variable like the outer & inner circle?

[jrfarrar]

Above when you said “specific location I created” you should have already done that.

[Bboy486]

How does this compare (battery wise and accuracy) to https://community.smartthings.com/t/release-improved-mobile-presence-android-only/102492/133

[acd37]

This one is dependent on your wifi connection—i.e. better router = better accuracy. So it depends on your hardware, size of home etc. as to whether it is efficient.

Comparatively, I run the webcore presence sensor on a Pixel XL on Android and see no significant battery drain.

[jrfarrar]

@ady624 so far now no matter what I do I can’t get a working presence sensor. Started from scratch three times now. I have the device. It’s registered to the instance. I see events in the IDE when it registers and changes the name. After that, nothing. opening the device on the phone and I see blanks for every field. No logs, nothing.

It all was working fine. Until I removed it and was attempting to associate it with my main instance. After removing my test instance I even went back and made a new instance and new sensor. Completely removed app and instance and started from scratch. Still nothing. Any ideas?