iBeacon in companion app? (iOS)

Mobile Apps Home Assistant Companion for Apple
1

When googling, it seems like it is (was?) possible to add iBeacons in the companion app, so that the phone would detect when its near a beacon.
However I cant seem to find this option in the iOS app, only NFC tags? Bluetooth and location permissions are granted.

Am I missing something or has this feature been removed?

The HA server itself detected the beacon and suggested to add the ibeacon tracker integration, however I want to place the beacon outside of my house, and need the detector on the phone.

2

+1 can’t find it either

3

Appearently its meant to work by adding a beacon to a zone, and then check if the phone is inside said zone (which will trigger via beacon).

But the documentation on this is barely existing, and I cant get it to work.

4

Could you make it work @patrick_jane ? I am facing similar problem as well. Thanks a lot in advance.

5

Nope.
Also tried geofency with webhook trigger, but this did not work reliably unfortunately.

6

I added this in customize.yaml. iPhones detect the driveway beacon and trigger a location change to activate automations.

zone.home:
  beacon:
    uuid: 52414449-5553-4E45-5457-4F524B53434F
    major: 62000
    minor: 42000

Values above are configured for each iBeacon. Yours will be different.

7

Are you sure it’s not triggered by GPS? Because i tried pretty much the same, in different variations, and none worked.

8

Yes. I get a log entry identifying the device as the trigger.

9

Okay, but the zone does have GPS coordinates, and it could trigger by GPS too?
Thing is, once I go down to the subway, GPS signal gets so bad, that it triggers a zone entry even when i am not even remotely close to my home. I experimented with setting lat/lon to somewhere in greenland, or setting the zone to passive.

But either way, I could never trigger a zone entry by beacon, even tho the companion app would show the beacon info in the zone details.

Gonna try this again.

10

Yes, the zone can also trigger by GPS. I use a hybrid IC3 tracking configuration with both HA iCloud, IC3. I have an AppleTV as a Homekit hub and Nuba Casa for Companion App connection. This redundancy increases the chances automations will trigger. Apple provides the voice assistant, scenes, and iCloud tracking, while HA, Companion App, and IC3 does the complex automations and also tracks devices. This is not the most battery-friendly configuration, but it generally works as expected.

The issue you’re having is similar to one I solved with an ibeacon and template sensor. Every situation is different and can require quite a bit of experimentation before a solution is found. You’re into HA now, “Gonna try this again.” is you’re best way forward :slight_smile:

11

„Now“? :sweat_smile: Probably for almost 10 years.