Create Manual Device Tracker

Configuration
1

Hi!
I have added a person in my HA, but I don’t have any device tracker to set the person presence. It’s an assistance person that is in my home based on configured timetable.
I have added a Calendar to set the timetable and I want with an automation set the person presence when calendar events start or ends.
I see that there is an action called device_tracker.see but to call this action I need a device tracker.
How can I set a new device tracker that could be assigned to person?

With regards,

2

Hi ,

I suggest reading this over first and seeing where you are at after that:

If you have more questions there are many threads with answers about this. You can try entering this in your search engine:

site:community.home-assistant.io device_tracker.see

You can always post what you tried so far and ask more here if that all fails.

1 Like
3

Before you put a lot of time and energy into this, can you clarify what your goal is?

What is the purpose of using a fake person based on a calendar? Why not just use the calendar directly or use it to set an appropriate input helper?

Building workflows based on fake data is a common source of regret and frustration.

1 Like
4

Sorry for the post, I have seen similar posts but I was a little confused because of reading that known_devices.yaml is phased out in the docs.

One question. In the past I have try to set presence detection based on shelly bluetooth devices but didn’t work, so at the moment I have known_devices.yaml with some devices. Is there any problem on cleaning that file and adding new device manually? Or is there any better or cleaner way to delete unused device entities that I don’t want.

I want to do some actions based on the person presence.

  • Don’t turn off lights based on motion sensors
  • Don’t send me alerts of opened windows if I’m out …

Yes, you are all right, It’s possible to do that with a binary sensor, but for example if in the future I want to enable or disable alarm based on persons at home maybe I can forget it and enable alarm with a person at home.

I don’t know if there is any better way to set that presence unless connecting his device to my wifi or something like that…

Thanks for your help.

5

Some device manufacturers are phasing out their use of the yaml method because it can be a PIA.
It remains available for HA and sensors you make yourself and nowhere does it say HA will no longer support it.

6

And it’s safe to remove already created devices manually or it will be let any corrupt or incomplete information?

With regards

7

That can be a complicated question, but in general the worst that can happen is the old one hangs around longer or if the entity_id changes, you might loose your connection to the LongTermStatistics for the device, bur it is difficult to cause corruption doing that. It handles most scenario’s well.