Google Maps location sharing

tismondo · June 12, 2017, 9:47am

I understand that this doesn’t require any extra apps installed / battery drain (for those already using google location) - but how does this compare with owntracks in terms of accuracy?

virualdo · June 12, 2017, 12:58pm

It was the same error message, just i’ve posted the first line, so this fix works for me too. Thanks!

virualdo · June 12, 2017, 1:05pm

Can I use two or more safe devices with this component and just one dummy account? Has anyone tried it?
device_tracker:

platform: gplus
id: device1
etc…
platform: gplus
id: device2
etc…

EDIT: I’ve tried now and it works

virualdo · June 12, 2017, 1:09pm

I’ve owntracks working for a while, now i will give a try to this component and compare both working at the same time, so in a few day i think i will have an answer for that.

FrenchToast · June 13, 2017, 10:32pm

I also had the "No module named “bs4” error message.

I then installed BeautifulSoup via the virtual environment and it installed in the following location (which I’m assuming is wrong since i still have the error).

/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages

I was easily able to obtain the needed info from the google page, just stuck on this now and looking for some insight.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

FrenchToast · June 21, 2017, 12:30am

Bump.

I’d like to see this supported or at the least some insight as to why I might have this error still. Lot of google research has been fruitless as far as ways to install BeautifulSoup and why the “No module named bs4” error.

Zach.

-EDIT-
I’m running python 3.4 if that helps/matters.

rensvdn · July 10, 2017, 10:29am

2017-07-10 12:58:29 ERROR (Thread-3) [custom_components.device_tracker.gplus] Google didn’t send the location. Updating data[‘at’]

I have all the data just as MrEmielH described

device_tracker 1:

platform: gplus
id: emiel_android
url: ‘URL-VALUE’
cookie_sid: ‘SID-VALUE’
cookie_hsid: ‘HSID-VALUE’
cookie_ssid: ‘SSID-VALUE’
data_freq: ‘FREQ_VALUE’
home_url: ‘https://aboutme.google.com’

what can be wrong still?

mcfrojd · July 10, 2017, 2:58pm

I have the same error as @rensvdn

EDIT - switched to self mode and now it works.

rensvdn · July 10, 2017, 5:19pm

ahh, how? i followed the instructions for self mode, but still errors.
if i run the lines in the bash script:

import requests

headers = {…}
params = (…)
data = […]

api_request = requests.post(‘https://aboutme.google.com/_/ProfilesMeUi/data’, headers=headers, params=params, data=data)

than, ans = api_request.text
matched_lines = [line for line in ans.split(’\n’) if “www.google.com/maps/” in line]
matched_lines = zero, so there is no location data in my google account, how can i solve this then?

i did enable google tracking on locations and i can see my current location on my timeline.

****EDIT: i got it working, still needed to enable sharing in android.

tismondo · July 17, 2017, 2:46pm

I’m hoping to run in safe mode (I’m tracking more than one person, so it’s a lot simpler using safe mode as well) but am constantly getting errors like everyone else. I really want to avoid self mode if possible…

ERROR (Thread-5) [custom_components.device_tracker.gplus] Google didn't send the location. Updating data['at']

@aa755 Does Safe Mode work for you still?

aa755 · July 18, 2017, 3:41pm

Yes. Make sure that you have enabled location sharing properly: the location of the tracked account has to be shared with the dummy account used to login in the safe mode.

tismondo · July 19, 2017, 3:57pm

If I log into my dummy account and access either G+ or Google Maps, I see the main account’s location listed fine.

In the interest of debugging what I’ve done wrong: does the error I posted above imply that the cookie authentication is working fine, but for one reason or another the location didn’t come through?

Or is it still possible there’s something wrong with the values I plugged into config.yaml?

aa755 · July 19, 2017, 6:05pm

I would manually run the python code you get in the second last step at:

github.com

aa755/home-assistant.github.io/blob/patch-2/source/_components/device_tracker.google_plus.markdown

---
layout: page
title: "Google Plus"
description: "Instructions how to use Google Plus to track mobile devices in Home Assistant."
date: 2016-11-1 19:00
sidebar: true
comments: false
sharing: true
footer: true
ha_category: Presence Detection
ha_version: TBD
---
If you share your Android's location with Google, this component fetches those locations from Google's servers to your Home Assistant. This component does NOT directly communicate with your phone, thus using this component does not cause any additional battery drain.
Suppose your Android phone is linked to your Google Account, say [email protected].
This component can be used in 2 modes: 
- Self Mode: It visits "aboutme.google.com" while appearing (to Google) to be logged in as [email protected]. Using this mode requires putting your Google cookies into the home assistant config file. If anyone gets access to these cookies, they may be able to do anything with your google account, e.g. delete the account.
- Safe Mode: In this safer mode, the component visits the Google Plus profile page of [email protected], while appearing (to Google) to be logged in as a dummy Google account, say [email protected]. In this case, (only) the cookies of [email protected] are needed. Just for the initial setup, you need to install the Google Maps Android App on Android, and log into the app as [email protected], and in its location settings, share the location with [email protected]. After that, you can uninstall the Google Plus app on Android.


```yaml

This file has been truncated. show original

I would then manually inspect Google’s response. Does it contain the location?

tismondo · July 20, 2017, 6:44am

I’m not sure I’m doing things right -

I saved the curl -> python requests output into a .py file
installed python
installed python requests
from the command line, ran

c:\users\username\appdata\local\programs\python\python36\python.exe c:\users\username\desktop\pythontest.py

But the command line just goes back to c:\ without an error or any other output.

I also noted that the Firefox instruments pane outputs a lot of different data?ds.extension listings… Are they all equally usable, or do I need to use a particular one?

I really appreciate your answering my mundane questions like this, by the way! Many thanks for that!

mcfrojd · July 30, 2017, 4:43pm

Does it still work with 2 devices for you.
I tried with first 1 self device, then another, but when i added them both one of them did not update or i had a error message.

ashfaaaa · August 6, 2017, 10:29am

@tismondo even I’m facing same error did you manage it to fix it?

2017-08-06 13:27:23 ERROR (Thread-18) [custom_components.device_tracker.gplus] Google didn't send the location. Updating data['at']```

tismondo · August 6, 2017, 11:07am

@Ashfaaa Sadly, no. I’m not certain I’m using the right data?ds.extension file - the Firefox instruments pane ouputs a bunch of them and it wasn’t clear to me from the instructions if I need to use a specific one or if any would do.

I tabled working on it for now but plan to revisit it. Maybe something is different now that I’m running hass.io? (unlikely, but worth hopeful thoughts, haha)

NotoriousBDG · August 6, 2017, 12:58pm

@tismondo & @ashfaaaa, it took me a while find the right payload for data_freq. In the end the one that worked looked like this sanitized string:

[[[00000000,[{"00000000":[null,null,[[null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,[[null,[0,null,"000000000000000000000"]]]],[null,null,null,null,[[null,[0,null,"000000000000000000000"]]]],[null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,[[null,[0,null,"000000000000000000000"]]]],[null,null,null,[[null,[0,null,"000000000000000000000"]],0,null]],[null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,[[null,[0,null,"000000000000000000000"]]]],[null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,[[null,[0,null,"000000000000000000000"]]]],[null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,[[null,[0,null,"000000000000000000000"]]]],[null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null,[[null,[0,null,"000000000000000000000"]]]],[null,[[null,[0,null,"000000000000000000000"]],0]]],[null,[0,null,"000000000000000000000"]],null]}],null,null,0]]]

ashfaaaa · August 6, 2017, 1:32pm

@NotoriousBDG in my config it looks similar but it not working. I have 2 things to clarify

URL: if I’m not wrong this I have to get from the last line in python script which I converted from curl starts with # requests.post('https://aboutme.google.com/ and ends before, headers=headers,

2.home_url: this is a link for my [email protected] G+ which looks like this https://plus.google.com/+username if using as self-mode do I have to mention this?

and did you change anything on the android phone. if yes how? I read above that even if you’re using self-made you have to share location to dummy@gmail. I have done it.

NotoriousBDG · August 6, 2017, 2:30pm

@ashfaaaa, my url looks like this when using safe mode:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/_/PlusAppUi/data

The portion of the request looks like this:

requests.post(‘https://plus.google.com/u/0/_/PlusAppUi/data’, headers=headers, params=params, cookies=cookies, data=data)

All i did on my phone is share my location with the account that I’m using with this component.