Hi,
I have installed your integration. I think one step is missing during the installation. We must go to the Settings, devices and services and install the Google Map integration. Apart from a small lack in the documentation, no problem to install.
Thank you for your work.
To be honest I find that google maps is not a really good exchange for life360. The foundation is different and the integration and possibilities are very different. A service like Glympse.com is more like life360. But that would need some love from a developer before it can work.
Thanks for giving it a try. I’d really like to hear how it works for you.
Well, technically speaking, that is not an installation step. Installation is getting it into the custom_components folder so HA knows it exists. You do that via HACS or via manually installing it.
What you are referring to is the same as any integration you configure via the UI. You “add” an integration entry and supply any required configuration data. Some integrations can only be added once, and others, like this one, can be added as many times as you like, in this case, once per Google account you want to use.
I’m not sure it’s necessary to explicitly state this in the integration specific documentation since it’s a common HA procedure.
Anyway, I’ll make a mental note of your comment and if this becomes a common problem, I can add more explicit instructions.
You’re very welcome! 
That’s pretty vague. Can you expand on that?
I’ve used Life360 & Google Maps in HA for years and both have worked pretty well, at least as far as providing useful location (and other) data.
I’m very interested to hear what you base those comments on and what you think is lacking in the Google Maps integration. Thanks!
I thought it would be clear. But I’ll explain.
Life360 is made to track people and their movements. Also I can get movement history. It’s made for the whole family and help the family.
Glympse does the same, but market it as a business thing. But the idea is the same.
Google Maps is an atlas with a lot of abilities such as plan routes and navigate them. Sharing locations of places and people is one of those abilities. Though it perfectly shares your location and the location of others (adult members only), it does not work like life360. I can’t use the app to see where other are in a split second. The map it crowded with other places Google thinks I would be interested in and I have to zoom out to see other without all the other places. Also I can’t get the history of people of where they have been during the day. What Google is good at is search, and Google Maps is no different. But it is not a people tracker.
TL;DR: The API of Google Maps functions fine, it’s the android App which lacks to much tracking ability for my taste.
Please see the following new topic for more information & discussion concerning my custom version of the Google Maps integration:
I now see more clearly what you mean. I’ve added details in the above linked new topic, and I’ll be adding them to the custom integration doc as well. Thanks!
Ok, I see now you were talking more about the Google Maps app (or website), and not Home Assistant’s integration with it. Fair enough.
The good thing is, the HA integration (and my custom version of it) provides the information you’re interested in without all the other bells & whistles, including location of those who have shared their location with you, and you can even get “bread crumbs” if you use HA’s Map card.
After testing google maps for a couple of weeks now I can add a disadvantage to my list. It is slow with it’s updates compared to life360. So slow, that my house does not notices me home until about 2 minutes after I arrive. That is a big no-go for me.
There are many factors that affect how quickly HA will see a location update from the Google Maps integration.
Which integration are you using, the standard, built-in one, or my custom version?
What do you have the scan_interval or update period set to?
How many Google accounts have you configured the integration to use?
Note that by default, both the built-in integration and my custom version query the server every 60 seconds. That can be changed via a config option to anything you want. Life360, on the other hand, queried the server every 10 seconds.
The built-in integration, however, limits the update period to no smaller than 30 seconds if you only use one Google account. (If you use more than one, the limiting code doesn’t work, so in that case, you can actually have it update more quickly than every 30 seconds.) My custom version does not have this limitation.
So, basically, using the default configuration, the HA integration will take on average 30 seconds to see new location values from the server, or as long as a minute, whereas Life360 took only 5 seconds on average, or up to 10 seconds.
My recommendation would be to use my custom version and set the update period to 10 seconds. That should get you results that are closer to what you experienced with Life360.
Ok, after testing this for a month now I can pretty certainly say that Google Maps in the Netherlands sucks big time. It only updates location when it want’s to. It’s offline more often then not. It’s completely worthless. So, I’m back in the game for a good alternative.
You still haven’t provided the requested information. You’re making blanket statements based on your specific scenario & experience, but it’s not clear how/when they would apply to others.
Also, are you sure the issue is not with your phone’s configuration? It’s possible Google is not getting updates from your phone as often as you’d like due to settings in the phone you could possibly change.
It may be true what you say, and nothing can make Google Maps in the Netherlands work well for anyone. I wonder, though, if that is really the case.
Anyone else in the Netherlands (who is reading this topic) have a different experience?
Regarding an alternative, I didn’t take the time to go back and re-read the entire exchange above, so maybe you’ve already decided against using it, but another option that works well as far as responsiveness is GPSLogger. It only works with Android phones, though. The standard, built-in integration is fine, but I also have a custom version of it which adds a last_seen attribute, if you’re interested.
I’ve have explained my use case before. But I will again. I want a cloud solution so it works without with HA and without HA. I want a dedicated app were I can track my family without the use of HA. I don’t use the HA app for that. I also like to see movement of family members in the app (something Maps really lacks). That is that in a nutshell something apps as Glympse or life360 would really be perfect for and apps as GPSLogger or Owncloud are not. I don’t mind paying for it all as long as it works. But at the moment there is no solution that works.
Maps has full permissions on all phones and battery optimalisation is disabled for maps totally. But still it won’t update as smoothly as others.
You can still use Life360 for location monitoring of other Life360 members devices. It just doesn’t work with HA anymore. And that seems to fit into your requirements.
or am I missing something…?
My home automation works with HA obviously and so HA does need to know my location. I just don’t like to use HA app as a map for finding my family. So life360 is not working for me anymore. There is a very good alternative called Glympse with a very well documented API and free use. But nobody seems to care and I am no programmer.
The problem with Glympse is that it is user activated (at least on the free tier). The user in question has to remember to share their location with you for every destination. It is not an automatic setting.
Couldn’t you use both life360 and the HA app then?
I rather not. It will drain my battery even more.
I don’t think it will. I’m pretty sure they all pull location data from the OS.
I believe the private groups can work as life360 works. But not sure. Maybe glympse is not the solution. That would suck. This whole situation sucks. Life360 should start communicating about what there reason is and how we could work together towards a solution.
FYI, I have been able to get the Life360 integration working again. If anyone would like to try it, the custom integration is available in this repo:
https://github.com/pnbruckner/ha-life360
Beta version 0.5.0b5 is the latest. Documentation can be found here:
ha-life360/README.md at new-api · pnbruckner/ha-life360 (github.com)
