Automatic Status Updates and Samsung Android 12 Devices

Last month we began receiving reports from some of our Android users that automatic status updates were coming in long after the user entered/left a Geofence. After investigating, it became clear early on that the only users reporting this problem were on Samsung devices with Android 12.

Geofences originally worked great without any additional configuration on Samsung phones running Android 12. As it turns out, this changed in August when Samsung started putting apps to sleep more aggressively. This stops Simple In/Out from launching and immediately processing an automatic status update, instead being launched at a later time. For the purposes of Geofences, this delay is a Samsung introduced problem.

If you are a Samsung phone user on Android 12 and notice that Simple In/Out seems to stop updating your status automatically or if your automatic status updates become significantly delayed, you are in this category of users. We can only hope that Samsung walks this mistake back in future versions of their software.

In the meantime, you can toggle a setting that will stop Samsung from doing this, specifically called Put unused apps to sleep. We’ve added a writeup with screenshots among our Frequently Asked Questions. We’ve also shipped a new version of Simple In/Out for Android that points this setting out in our Automatic Status Update Troubleshooting screen for only Samsung customers running Android 12.

As always, check out our Troubleshooting screen for tips on making Automatic Status Updates work great on your device, Samsung or otherwise. Watch our video on the subject and always feel free to reach out to us directly for assistance.