Best option for location tracking

Hello,

I am just starting with Hass.io and trying to figure out how all of this works. My first question is about how the best way to track my iphone location to tell HA I am at home or not.

I am a little confused about all the options I found. As I understand I can update my location from the phone by:

  • Asuswrt: Checking if the client is still connected to the router. So it will always have the delay of the lease time of the router.

  • With the Ios App when I enable the ios: compoment

  • by the Nmap Device tracker which how I understood is almost the same like entering the Asuswrt router

  • by the Icloud compoment which drains the battery

I guess thats correct so far. My question is now, which one to use. Which is the most reliable option?

Would be nice to get the opinion from somebody who knows what he is doing… I am still a trainee :slight_smile:

Maybe try to use the first three points in a Bayesian sensor.

I personally use a combo of these.

Local Detection:

  • Ubiquiti Unifi WAP
    (Extremely Reliable. Minimal battery drain )

  • Monitor BlueTooth ( Monitor - Multi-user bt occupancy presence detection. )
    (Extremely Reliable. Minimal battery drain )

  • HomeKit
    (Acceptably Reliable. Minimal battery drain )

  • Actiontec WAP
    ( Unreliable, but necessary until I finish converting my network to Ubiquity products. Minimal battery drain )

GPS Detection:

  • HA iOS App
    (Acceptably Reliable. Moderate-Minimal battery drain )

IMO, it’s best to use multiple, different, local options (1x WiFi, 1x Bluetooth, & Homekit if applicable ) & 1x decent GPS option, to get the most overall accuracy.

You can then use the Bayesian sensor as @talondnb suggested. It is a little bit complicated to setup/understand initially, but provides the best case when set up correctly.

OR

Just throw them in a group, which is simpler to setup/understand initially, and “Good enough” if you have some reliable presence detection.


For your specific use case, if I were you, for local, I would use only the Asuswrt and look into adding Homekit & Monitor if possible.

I’d also recommend just the HA iOS app for GPS. The iCloud component is probably the most accurate of all the GPS components, but also causes the most battery drain which doesn’t make the extra accuracy worth it IMO.

1 Like

I use both Bluetooth and the ios app and I do not notice any battery issue. In my case, I typically have wifi disabled on my phones to improve battery life, but I always have bluetooth on to support hands free in the car as well as watch connection.

Thank you all guys. I think now I have enough information to spend a lot of time to do so. Now I have a lot of BLE discovered device. How can i find out which of them is my Iphone? Is there a trick?

Find out your BT MAC address in your phone and check against that.