I just started using Home Assistant this week and have been having a lot of fun with it so far. I set up the Companion App last night. I left the house a few times today but when I look at my History the device_tracker shows as Home all day.
I’m guessing that this is because my Home Assistant instance is only available on my home network and if I’m not on the network nothing is updated (and it just remains in the default state of Home). I checked around but couldn’t find confirmation of that theory.
If that’s the case it sounds like I either need to add Nabu Casa (which I was considering anyway) or some other method of connecting to Home Assistant outside of my network.
Having the same issue. My location based automations are not working, and my main dashboard shows what zone my wife and I are in (Home and Away) and since updating nothing works
Did you tested this? I’ve same issue. But strange, because i can get the notifications when i’m outside. (without vpn or cloud solution) Normally if i’m not connected vpn or I’m not using nabu casa, so also it not should be work but it’s working. Why?
No, there is average 5 km from home to work. But notifications is caming (without vpn or nabu casa) But looks like if i connected by vpn, also leave from home notifications is caming. That’s mean it’s needed nabu casa or vpn am i right?
you need to have some sort of external access to your home network for the app to reach your HA install.
It needs to be an open port on your router using your public IP address of your router which is then forwarded to your HA port, or a vpn that goes thru your router to your home network that can access HA, or Nabu Casa that sets up the port forwarding for you automatically, or some other way to open your router to the outside world so that your mobile app can access your internal network from the outside.
I have a vpn solution for this. I’m using wireguard to access from outside. Let me explain again;
İf vpn is not active on the mobile phone, still i can get notification by homeassistant mobile app ( for example i have an automation, if window is opened, call notification service and send a notification to my mobile phone) very strange, this works even though I’m not connected by vpn. But another automation is not working ( if x person is from home to not_home and if window is open, sent a notification)
İf vpn is connected, my second automation also is working. (İf x person from home to not_home and if window is open, sent a notification) because if vpn is not connected, it can not sent updated location information. İt’s looks like always at home. I think it’s normal. I mean everyone using vpn or nabu casa for leave from home automation am i right? Otherwise this automation can not work right? But other notifications how to work? (1. Example)
not without knowing more details of your specific system than I want to know.
as far as I know the mobile app notifications also need the external connection to be received. But I could be wrong about that. I know there are other notification apps (I use pushbullet) that can send notifications to your phone without having any ports explicitly opened on your router. The app handles that in the background for you. But you have to also have the app running on the mobile device.
Maybe that is also the way that HA mobile notifications work as well.
maybe you don’t need to have the vpn (etc) connected to receive notifications but only just to send info to HA from external source?
Months later and same issue. I’ve been running the 2021 Nov update because thats the last know successful one
Now I have fixed something to where I can see my Geocoded location, but that is not associated to a device_tracker and I cannot associate the Geocoded Location to a person so… still broken
did you follow the troubleshooting guide for device tracker not updating? If so did you look at the logs in that troubleshooting step? The logs will show exactly what is going on with the device tracker as long as the troubleshooting steps are completed.
The geocoded location sensor is actually not related to the device tracker as its just a sensor that reads the same state but does not subscribe to location updates. It does not update as regularly as the device tracker. HA core does not allow sensors to be associated with a person entity so that is a feature request for HA core and not something the app can control. So 2 different issues actually.
Lets look at the logs for device tracker to see what the actual issue is, most users do not have issues with the device tracker.
I am not certain if this is the same issue or not, but I have some devices trackers working fine while others are not. At one point all 4 worked to track 4 different people. Each person only has one device being tracked which is their cell phone with the home Assistant app installed.
What is strange is that the geolocation data keeps updating without issue and updates regularly as expected, but if I look at the device tracker of that same device, it always shows the same lat and long of my home which never updates but the geo location is updating.
This causes the person to also appear home and not their actual location. I am running core 2022.6.6 if that helps. I also remove the home assistant companion app and reinstalled it on one of the devices, however that did not make a difference
That is very strange. My device quite working today as well when it had been working fine. I had compared the ones that where not working with my settings and everything matched, so I didn’t check all of the settings that were in that document, since everything did match mine which had been working at the time. Well I saw the last message while I was away and I went in and noticed that mine all of a sudden stopped as well. The Single accurate location was disabled. and when I enabled it that all started working again.
My question is, I know the compainion app on my phone has not had any configuration changed made to it for several months so i wonder how that setting would have gotten flipped or was that a change to the app and when it auto upgraded that became a new feature or flipped it back?
The other family members don’t use the app that often, but I use it to access my dashboards on a regular bases which should not cause the phone to make any changes on its own and seeing it happening to mine knowing I had not modified anything, just seems very strange
If location was turned off on the device and the app tried to get location then the sensor will turn off to prevent future checks until it becomes enabled again. A sensor being enabled is also tied to the app having proper permission and if a feature is turned off then so are it’s permissions. I have seen a few users report this and this is what we discovered.
Mine is doing very similar. geolocation is updating but device tracker is only showing known zones and not away. so i was at home then work, then shopping, then work then home. but nothing about the travelin inbetween.
