How to Set Up Mobile Presence Sensing

How to Set Up Mobile Presence Sensing

With the Hubitat mobile app, you can easily add devices so any household member leaving or arriving home can trigger automations with mobile presence detection.

If you opt-in, the Hubitat mobile app uses your phone’s location to figure out when you’ve crossed over a virtual perimeter around your home, referred to as a geofence. You can designate center and size of the geofence area when setting up presence sensing in the mobile app.

NOTE: The Hubitat mobile app doesn’t track where you are or where you’ve been. Data for presence sensing and geofence is only used to determine when you come home or when you leave.

For presence sensing to work properly, you’ll need to make sure that:

1. Your hub location is set accurately in Settings > Hub Details on your hub.
2. You’ve enabled the geofence option in the Hubitat mobile app.
3. You’ve set location permissions for the Hubitat Mobile app to Always or Allow all the time.
4. If applicable, everyone in your household you want to participate in presence sensing has the Hubitat mobile app installed and configured on their own phones.

Install the Hubitat Elevation Mobile App

1. Follow the directions in the Hubitat Mobile App documentation to install and configure the Hubitat Elevation mobile app.

   • If prompted, select the hub you wish to use as the recipient of the presence/geofence events (if you have multiple hubs, the app can communicate with only one hub at a time).
   • If prompted, select the mobile app device you wish to use for th

2. The name of your phone will appear in the Devices list on the hub you connected to with the Hubitat Elevation mobile app. Included with this device is the ability for your mobile device to send presence events (present or not present) to the hub based on your geofence as well as the ability to receive notifications on your phone from the hub.

3. Presence sensing can be disabled or enabled at any time by toggling the Enable GeoFence settings option under More > Geofence > Settings (icon) in the Hubitat Elevation mobile app.

Use the Mobile App Device on Your Hub

Arrival or departure of the mobile phone creates an event. To use these events or their resulting conditions as part of an automation, use the mobile app device (named as it appears in the Devices list) in an app that can use presence sensors to create your desired automation. Such apps include Basic Rule, Rule Machine, Mode Manager, and many others.

Troubleshooting Geofence Problems

If you are having problems with your geofence, including

• presence status (present or not present) not updating on the hub when expected
• mobile app showing unexpected "Inside of geofence" or "Outside of geofence" status
• geofence appearing to have wrong center or undesired radius

then check each set of steps below to troubleshoot.

Ensure Device Location Permissions Set

Make sure your phone/operating system has the necessary permissions set for the Hubitat Elevation mobile app.

1. iOS users: open the Settings app, then navigate to Privacy & Security > Location Services, select Hubitat from the list, and ensure Always is selected. Also ensure Precise location is enabled.
2. Android users: open the Settings app, then navigate to Apps, select Hubitat from the list, select Permissions, select Location, then ensure that Allow all the time is selected. Also ensure Use precise location is enabled.

Ensure Geofence Enabled in App

Make sure the geofence feature is enabled in the Hubitat Elevation mobile app.

1. Open the Hubitat Elevation mobile app.
2. Navigate to the More tab, then select Geofence and tap the settings icon (upper right).
3. Ensure Enable Geofence is enabled.
4. Select Save if the geofence feature was disabled and you just enabled it.

Ensure Geofence Center/Radius Correct

Make sure your geofence center and geofence radius are set correctly.

1. Open the Hubitat Elevation mobile app.
2. Navigate to the More tab, then select Geofence.
3. Ensure the geofence center — indicated by the red pin on the map — is centered at/near your home. If not, tap and hold then drag the pin to the correct location (TIP: zooming in using a "pinch out" gesture may make the pin more easily to properly locate once you have it near the desired area).
4. If desired, adjust the bounds of your geofence — the geofence radius — using the slider below the map. (The exact accuracy of the borders will depend on your device, operating system, and other variables.)

TIP: To avoid this step when setting up a mobile device in the future, make sure your hub location is set correctly in Settings > Hub Details on your hub. This will be used as the default geofence center radius (but can be changed as described above on any individual device — without affecting hub settings or other devices — as needed).