Proximity Automation Issue

Hi,

I am looking for some help solving an issue with proximity automation. I’ve read all the literature I could find on this topic but have not been able to solve the issue.

Equipment:

  • iPhone 6S Plus, Simple Control app is NOT always open, location services set to always, background refresh on
  • iPad Air 2, never locked, screen always on, Simple Control app IS always open, location services set to always, background refresh on
  • Lutron Caseta Smart Bridge Pro, dimmers, switches

Objective:

Turn on lights when the iPhone enters the range of the iPad when the Simple Control app is NOT running in the foreground of the iPhone, but IS running in the foreground of the iPad.

Issue:

The proximity automation works perfectly as long as the Simple Control app is running in the foreground on my iPhone; however, it does not work when the Simple Control app is not running in the foreground. I have tried every permutation of settings I can think of, and I even see the geofence icon for Simple Control on my iPhone when the Simple Control app is not open, but it’s unclear what it’s doing.

Please advise.

Thanks

This was covered somewhere in an older post. Apple didn’t understand why iBeacons required background location support during one of our releases earlier this year. After even talking on the phone, it just didn’t get understood. When that kind of thing happens, we basically have to wait for a specific release entirely designed to go back and forth with Apple on this issue. Their policies all say it’s fine, but when you get unlucky with a reviewer that didn’t understand, problems happen and we can’t hold up the whole world for one issue. So even though this functionality had been approved by Apple and working since 2014, it has been disabled for some months until we can re-activate it, create a release around it that has a lot of free time to go back and forth in review, and hopefully get a reviewer that knows about iBeacons.

Thank you.