The Google Maps Travel Time integration uses the Google Maps Platform Distance Matrix API. Google has announced (via emails to users) that the API is being replaced by the Routes API and no new projects can be enabled with Distance Matrix API from March 1, 2025 onward.
It would be great to update the integration to use this new API.
Tagging removed as the integration owner per the first link above.
What I haven’t understood if pricing will change
Based on my use, very basic, I’ve got a table with estimation cost based on Sept. 2024 use
So, I’m bit confused…
Will be any way to use free usage or not anymore?
Thanks
I posted on the billing issues a bit earlier - Google Travel Time Integration Billing Changes. Essentially, the amount of free requests per account has been cut to 1/4 of what it was for “advanced” SKUs (i.e. any API call using traffic data - either the old distance matrix API or the new routes one).
The email says, “The expanded automatic volume discounts will not be available for the legacy services,” so I believe the pricing will definitely change.
Thanks for sharing that. Without tagging, how do the publicly-listed integration owners know when their integrations are being discussed?
They search the feature requests, if they want to. Many don’t, because they’ve got enough going on as it is.
Remember, they’re people with their own lives and priorities. Writing integrations is just a tiny part of their world.
so if we just change the integration from default polling to custom polling interval and make an automation to get data only when you need it (e.g. in the morning before going to work) then I think i’d only use 1/20 of the current requests.
From my understanding this should work and should stay free even if the API is deprecated?
That would probably work, though I assume the API will be removed at some point in the future.
In GitHub there is an open issue regarding this topic
Getting even more expensive for me and I don’t know what to do to avoid the costs. Safest option would be to uninstall in february, right?
Yeah, I was in the same ballpark as you. Instead of trying to further rate limit my requests to avoid paying, I wound up switching to the HERE travel time integration. For a week or two I had both installed and compared accuracy. It seems that the Google pessimistic estimate was a bit more accurate but HERE was always within 1-3 minutes, which is good enough for my purposes. The HERE API allows 1000 calls per day completely free. You need to register, but don’t need to put any billing info in. That’s already way more than what Google ever offered. Additionally, if you DO add billing info, the free threshold goes to 5k per day. With that amount, I was even able to add several other people and destinations that I had previously deemed not important enough to pay Google for.
I turn off the automatic polling and only update the sensor when the location changes and that person is away from home - with a built in cooldown (5 minutes when near-ish to home, up to an hour when far from home).
thank you! That was the perfect idea!
Setup is very straight forward, was way more complicated with google. And 1000 calls per day are more than enough. Perfect I love that! And now I don’t need to follow any updates and need to fear some API calls increase (like with the google dev account)
Awesome! Just removed the travel time integration right after installing the here one