Alternatives for Traccar

Third party integrations
1

Looking for a good device_tracker application.

Mobile App always worked very unreliable for me, starting from iPhone 5S (iOS 12.x), iPad Air 2 (iOS 15.x), some Android devices (v.12, if I am not mistaken) next to current iPhone 12 (iOS 26), iPhone 15 (iOS 26).
In all cases data stopped being updated in HA erratically.
Usually an opening of Companion App helped (but sometimes I needed to press a “update data” button in the app).

Before 2022, I used Life360, then it stopped working in Russia, then the service started “behaving bad” with HA.
A known story, and honestly I do not know if the integration works now.
But anyway, the service does not provide services for Russia, this is how the company considers their efforts to stop the aggression )).

Also, for last few years I used Traccar.
That was a rather reliable system, so I strongly recommended Traccar for several years, including here in Community.

Since June 2025 the situation changed.
Traccar Manager & Traccar Client became unreliable AT ONCE, right after of their updates.
I opened issues here & here, and so far see no real movement.
(there were also issues with HA integration for Traccar since May 2024, and in fact they are not solved so far, but this is another story)

On January 2026 a web access to “demo3.traccar.org” stopped working, a constant spinner is shown.
On the same period - maps stopped being shown on Traccar Manager on every device I tried (of course I tried both in cellular networks and several LANs with different ISPs).
And the reaction of the author on Github was a laconic “Not a proper place to complain” - without any explanation (kind of “ask Putin, ask God, whatever”).
After my attempts to discuss the point I was just blocked silently in his repo. )))

Of course, everything can be explained on a technical basis.
And some issues like “app services are blocked in Russia” (where I live) cannot be solved by the project author.
But what I see as the main problem is an unwillingness of the author to cooperate & help users to at least localise their issues.
So sad that the project died for me.
May be it will work with my OWN dedicated server instead of a public “demo3” server, no idea.

So, no working option for me anymore.
Can anyone recommend a really working solution?
I can even consider services WITHOUT an integration to HA - this may be (or not) implemented some day.
The main point - the service itself should be reliable.

2

Not war related issue, with reduced GPS accuracy? Do you also have GLONASS, etc input to your tracking device?
Can you ping “http://demo3.traccar.org/” - is it a DNS issue? Routing?
Do the built-in maps apps work reliably on your cell devices?
You may find people may have strong political views on assisting people in war zones. There may be technical limitations that are in place that you are not aware of, or have no control over. These may be very strong if you are close to the war front.

3

Reduced GPS accuracy is another issue.
Not sure if GPS accuracy was decreased by US for Russia.
In some places even GLONASS is not working (not to mention 3G/4G), this is 100% a result of local states))).
Explained as “our efforts to fight with Ukrainian drones” ))). Yes, local stupidity (not to mention that these are all consequences of our own idiotism).

In areas where GPS/GLONASS more-or-less work - the location tracking services are really really needed (and not for automations like “open a gate when I am about to come” - this is a matter of personal safety since a person can simply disappear & then you will find him/her in poilice).

Here there are 2 kind of limitations:

  1. Service providers like Life360 stop providing services to users from Russian IPs, stop registering users with phone numbers starting with “+7”. For testing, I managed to use Life360 with VPN installed on mobile phones of my family. But VPNs could be unreliable.
  2. Local ISPs (mainly on key nodes) block traffic for particular sites or a range of addresses (there is a gov org Roskomnadzor which decides what to block). Sometimes it is done in a very barbarian way - along with blocking “so called bad sites” many normal sites are blocked as well.

So, when some service is not working & you cleared your own setup - you need to:
– ask directly a service provider “are you blocking us?”;
– check if the site/address is blocked by that gov org.
Relatively to Traccar - the author does not answer explicitly if he blocked services for Russia; and I failed to find any info that Traccar was blocked by that gov org.

This is actually a non-technical offtop, just explaining.

It is pinged.

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Usually they do.
Yes, not in all places as I said above - we got a habit here to use offline maps (pre-downloaded) since 3G/4G may not be working, and in some places a location is shown like “50 km away”.

4

Looks like you have greater issues than HomeAssistant tracking accuracy to worry about. Your own personal global positioning satellite nay be a little expensive. Have you tried alternate ones such as the Chinese, North Korean, and other countries that might not have a vested intetest in killing you outright?
You know, by design that satellite positioning services are degraded in war zones.

5

I do not think I need a personal GPS-like services.
As I said, GPS/GLONASS more-or-less work - at least where my folks live.
What I need is a service like Life360 which can be installed on a mobile device & has an access where a device is.
So, coming back to the 1st comment of this thread.

I am posting a message here, means - not everything is so bad.

As for Traccar - I will give it one more chance:

by installing a local Traccar server on MY exposed machine…
But there were reasons I could not setup a constantly working machine with 24x7 access to Internet; so I wanted to have some public server.

6

You may find forums a little closer to home may offer real life workarounds based on lived experience. My comments are general - you may find more specific ones in your own language, a little closer to home and a little less open for authorities to monitor, and use in evidence against you in the future.

7

Sorry, but these forums may be more efficient in part of “how to bypass blocks etc”.
Here I am asking about other Life360-like services (again back to 1st comment).
See, I am not asking how to “break a law” - I am just asking about allowed public services.

8

Again, if you have infrastructure and data reliability issues, no software package is going to help you display it any better.

9

We are moving in circles & I have to repeat the same several times.
As I said, I have no confirmation that a particular Traccar service cannot be used here due to intentionally made limitations. There is a probability that the service is just buggy (like it suddenly happened to Traccar HA integration & thus made the integration fragile).
Same for MobileApp which is unreliable not because it is used in a particular country.
If personally you cannot advise a particular alternative, no problem, thanks for participating.

10

My experience with MobileApp iOS in the US is very good. However, my experience with Traccar Server led to instability issues, too. I now use a combination of MobileApp and Traccar Client as tracker entities, BUT NOT with Traccar Server. I use HA Tracker integration from HACS and am satisfied with the results.

11

Traccar Server integration for HA accesses a server (some public “demo” & user-personal), Traccar Client integration uses webhooks (if I am not mistaken) to connect to a device, was it your intentional choice? Could you explain this?

Sorry, but are you talking about some custom integration from HACS or this is a standard one (part of HA core)?

Look, an iOS device is inside LAN, is being used quite often (i.e. not always with disconnected wifi), and it stuck in a place I had been a few hours ago, no updates:

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If I open Companion App - it usually updates the location. But sometimes I need to press “update data” button in the App (wrote about it earlier). So I am not sure that these glitches are “local in my country” (see these glitches since 2020, by the way, before the war).

12

Yes, HA Tracker is a custom integration you have to install from HACS. Traccar client does use webhooks and HA gives you one. As long as your HA machine is good enough, you can have it be the middleman so-to-speak.

As far as Companion App is concerned, you do have Location Services set to Always, correct?

13

Affirmative)

Will google about that HA Tracker.

14

What I like about HA Tracker is that it can use HA’s native zones. You can parse the attributes of the Traccar Client entity and create a template sensor for speed and other things. Between that and using an automation like this, it serves it’s purpose. I get reasonable visuals and responsive updates on location. The speed reporting can be fickle, though. It doesn’t work half the time, lol -

alias: Tracker - Person
description: ""
triggers:
  - entity_id: person.person
    trigger: state
    id: zone_action
  - trigger: numeric_state
    entity_id:
      - sensor.person_iphone_speed
    above: 80
    id: speed
conditions: []
actions:
  - choose:
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id:
              - zone_action
          - condition: template
            value_template: >
              {{ trigger.to_state.state != 'not_home' and
              trigger.from_state.state == 'not_home' }}
        sequence:
          - metadata: {}
            data:
              message: "Person entered a zone: {{ trigger.to_state.state }}"
            action: notify.mobile_app_person_iphone
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id:
              - zone_action
          - condition: template
            value_template: >
              {{ trigger.from_state.state != 'not_home' and
              trigger.to_state.state == 'not_home' }}
        sequence:
          - metadata: {}
            data:
              message: "Person left a zone: {{ trigger.from_state.state }}"
            action: notify.mobile_app_person_iphone
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id:
              - speed
        sequence:
          - metadata: {}
            data:
              message: >-
                Warning: Person Speed exceeded 80 mph! Current speed: {{
                states('sensor.person_iphone_speed') }} mph.
            action: notify.mobile_app_person_iphone
mode: queued
max: 10
15

Interesting. Worth to check.

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