diff --git a/app/Jobs/IngestShellyMessage.php b/app/Jobs/IngestShellyMessage.php
index 25f60f6..91949f8 100644
--- a/app/Jobs/IngestShellyMessage.php
+++ b/app/Jobs/IngestShellyMessage.php
@@ -53,11 +53,12 @@ class IngestShellyMessage implements ShouldQueue
         $observedAt = $this->observedAt ?? (int) round(microtime(true) * 1_000_000);
         $observedTime = \Illuminate\Support\Carbon::createFromTimestampMs(intdiv($observedAt, 1000));
 
-        // Presence reflects when the message was RECEIVED, and only advances — queue latency,
-        // retries or stale messages can never refresh (or rewind) last_seen incorrectly.
-        if ($device->last_seen_at === null || $observedTime->gt($device->last_seen_at)) {
-            $device->forceFill(['last_seen_at' => $observedTime])->save();
-        }
+        // Presence reflects when the message was RECEIVED, and only ever advances. The guard
+        // lives in the WHERE clause (one atomic UPDATE), so concurrent workers can't rewind it
+        // via read-then-write — queue latency, retries or stale messages never mark it wrong.
+        Device::whereKey($device->id)
+            ->where(fn ($q) => $q->whereNull('last_seen_at')->orWhere('last_seen_at', '<', $observedTime))
+            ->update(['last_seen_at' => $observedTime, 'updated_at' => now()]);
 
         foreach (ShellyNormalizer::normalize($component, $data) as $update) {
             $entity = $device->entities()->firstOrCreate(