Add "areas" to the "zones" (besides default 'Home zone')

First of all, let me thank the development team and the community for an amazing product! - I’m a newcomer to HA and still blown away by the almost limitless possibilities. Thank you very much and appreciate your continuous development and various improvements!

I have one request (sorry if this was raised before). This is regarding the “zones” and “areas” in the HA. There is a default “Home” zone after installation which can be corrected on the map. After that different “areas” can be created inside that “Home” zone like: entrance, attic, basement, backside etc. Devices can be assigned to that zones including scenes. Then different automations can be assigned to the devices and scenes - this is cool and I get it.

My setup is a bit beyond the default zone as I have 3 locations where all of them are homes, like countryside and parent’s home. Nowadays one HA instance can control different geographical locations - even without ZigBee, like IP cams and device tracking. And even ZigBee can now be mapped remotely via LAN-based coordinators over home-VPN. There is no need for another HA server for a small remote location.

In regard to said-above I created two new “zones”. But the problem is that I can’t assign any “areas” related to that zones. This is not possible. But the biggest issue is when I try to make device-tracking, HA unites all the zones and treat them as a “Home” zone. I use Telnet-based (WiFi connection to a local router) presence detection. And I can’t do tracking based on the location as for the HA all 3 zones are “home”. There is no (clear) way to distinguish that. I can’t control who is at home on the remote location - only by an IP assigned from remote network but I can’t use this for automations.

I’m very sorry if I missed something but I tried different things. Yes, some virtual sensors can be created based on IP tracking (which LAN segment it belongs to) but this is a temporary workaround for me.
I would be obliged if this small feature can be implemented somehow in the future where several equal zones with areas inside them can be created (like some kind of “advanced settings” as this may be required only to a small number of people). Thanks for your time and attentions and any comments are very welcome! :beers:

Why not just define your areas like this:

Home Entry
Home Bedroom
Country House Entry
Country House Bedroom
Parents House Entry
Parents House Bedroom

There is a feature request for nested areas you can vote for too: Add Floor for Area and single device

Thank you for your prompt reply!
The problem is not with the naming - main issue is with the device tracking, I can’t setup to work on 3 sites controlled under one HA instance and a built-in Telnet-based router integration. After setting up the integration all devices are shown as “Home” whatever zone (site) they are in at the moment… HA treats all 3 sites as one “perimeter” (=inside that perimeter) as the “area” can belong to one zone at the moment, I can’t assign an area or device to another zone. I can’t get which phone is located on which site by a string value - it’s the same for all 3 locations as “Home” and I want to make them “Home1”, “Home2” and “Home3” (=make them equal in terms of attributes, now the “Home” is the “main” as others can’t have areas and devices assigned to them).

On the screenshot below there is an “area” but I can’t select a zone for that area because it’s in the default ‘home’ zone from the box… Or it’s not very clear how to do this (sorry if this already exists).

Did you solve it ? I have same problem! VPN connected homes in 3 zones. I cant assign area to zone

Just rename your zones.

I have zones same name as area, but it didnt help.
Can you provide yaml ?

My Zones are in Different Time Zones. So being able to assign Areas to Zones and have them reflect the time in those Zones would be VERY Helpful!

How did you solve it? You did?

I’ve same issue but I found that there is logical misunderstanding

You can assign Zones to Areas not vice versa.

I have similar setup - 3 buildings (Zones) connected through VPN with several rooms (Areas) inside. But HA logic don’t support this

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For indoor positioning this would make sense, all areas should by default belong to the home zone.

If a device(tracker) is in a zone with areas then changing the area of that device tracker should be possible (so, mobile devices/entities).

simple logic: If I’m not in home zone I cannot be in my living room area.

I’m using magic_areas and bermuda custom integrations and this would elevate the experience to all new levels.