Aug 11, 2018

Make Your SmartPhone a Presence Sensor for SmartThings

Updated: Apr 21, 2020

In prior articles I mentioned that the SmartThings App gives you the ability to set-up your Smart devices, either a tablet or smartphone with cellular service, as a presence sensor. You may be wondering how to accomplish this. I’ll take you through the easy steps to setup this functionality in this helpful article.

Enable Location Services for your SmartThings App

If you already have your SmartThings app installed on your phone but you are not currently using your Smartphones as presence sensors, your first step in to turn on location services for the SmartThings app.

To do this:

1. Go to your phone’s settings;

2. Find SmartThings in the list of your installed apps;

3. Click on the SmartThings icon and find “Location” and set Location to “Always” Allow Location Access;

Setting up Your Location in the SmartThings App

Once location services is enable on then you need to set up your Location in the SmartThings app. The following instructions are specific to setting up your location in the SmartThings Classic app.

To Add a Location in the SmartThings Classic app:

Tap the More menu (the three stacked lines in the lower right corner)
Tap the gear icon beside the Location
To choose a different Location, tap the dropdown arrow and then tap the gear icon for the Location
Add a Location Name - Tap to edit.
Add a Location Picture - Tap to take your own photo or choose one from our library.
Tap the map for Location Placement - The red pin should automatically center on your GPS coordinates. If needed, long press to place the pin in a new spot on the map, or tap and hold the pin to drag it.
Set the preferred circumference for your Location Geofence - Tap the map. Tap and drag the dot to change the size of the geofence surrounding your home.

How to Add a Cellular Phone or Tablet as a Presence Sensor

You can enable this feature at any time by following these steps in the SmartThings Classic app:

Tap Marketplace (The image beside the 3 stacked lines on the bottom right - looks sort of like a circus tent.)
Under Things, tap Sensors
Tap Presence Sensors
Tap Mobile Phone
Tap Connect Now
Give your device a name and select an image
Tap Done