deleted…assuming suggestions will be in 7/20 documentation update.
I tried to follow the instructions for those of us who have apple accounts with 2FS enabled…in other words, I set up a new apple account with a different email address…and opened icloud.
I set up the account using my windows computer. I added the two real accounts that I want to track to my contacts. Finally, I went to enable find my friends…but the application is not there!!!
I really don’t want to associate one of my iphones/ipads with this account…so how do I enable find my friends on this new icloud3 enablement apple account???
Addendum: I believe the only way you can add friends to “find my friends” is using an ios device such as an ipad or iphone…you can’t add friends using a windows computer (I don’t know if you can do this from a MAC). That means that I have to move one of my devices to this new account to enable find my friends. I could do this with one of my ipads and then put it back on my regular account, but based on experience, I’m worried that it mess up something in my apple or icloud accounts.
I would appreciate suggestions…because at this point, it appears that I may not be able to use icloud3
I’m working on a drawing that shows how things are linked together.
I’ve just uploaded iCloud3 beta4. This version will be released as the final on Monday if there are no issues.
Changes:
- Changed account_name in configuration parameters to better clarify that this is not the iCloud FmF/FmPhn account but really refers to how the tracked devices are grouped. The new parameter is group, e.g.,
group: familyorgroup: work. - Fixed some issues with the new base_zone parameter. You can now have the same device in different groups with different base zones and they are tracked using the same device name. For example, you can track your phone from your ‘home’ zone and your ‘work’ zone. Since the devicename is the same, the HA IOS App enter/exit triggers go to both instances (home and work) of the devices.
The base_zone is now added to the front of the sensor’s entity name so all sensors for a zone are grouped together. (sensor.work_gary_iphone_travel_time) but the name can be customized. See the documentation on Sensors for more information on how this works. - Fixed some error messages and cleaned up some code.
- Added create_sensors and exclude_sensors so you can customize the sensors that are created by iCloud3. A code is assigned to each entity and entered on the config parameter line. If create_sensors is used, only those sensors are created, if exclude_sensors is used, iCloud3 creates the normal list of sensors except the ones specified.
- Changed some date formatting parameters (internal) so iCloud3 now runs in a python environment on a Windows platform.
Note: If there are sensors that really never are used, rather than not create them, I can set up a default for the ones to be excluded. Let me know what you think.
There have been some questions and confusion setting up FmF and how it ties to the real account. I’ve revamped the docs but want to add a picture that might help.
Let me know of any issues that can be taken care of before I finalize the version at the beginning of the week.
Get the new version here
Get the new iCloud3 Documentation here
Get the full Change Log here
Thanks for the feedback. It has helped.
Gary
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Your documentation on what to do if you have 2FA enabled won’t work! You can create a new account without 2FA on a windows computer, but you can’t enable find my friends (as far as I know) without a device attached to that dummy account. If my apple devices have IOS 13, I wonder if they will connect to an old account without 2FA enabled or if it will force enabling 2FA.
So we are left with enable the new account on windows, connect an apple phone/ipad to that account not running IOS 13 to enable “find my friends” and set up the link to your regular account. That’s a work around that won’t fly for long…I know this isn’t easy…but I hate to see all your good work made unusable when IOS 13 or 13.x comes along. Not sure if I can even use it, unless I am willing to disable and enable one of my current devices a couple of times which is pretty ugly.
iOS App v2 gives me an attribute xxxx and xxx_2 for two, mobile_app tracked devices. I wouldn’t need a _1 for the first device, correct? Also, am I looking to augment the device_tracker.mydevice created by mobile_app, or replace it? Do I need to disassociate the mobile_app tracker from the person entity?
As far as I can tell, FmF is not really connected to a device, it is connected to an iCloud account (the real one). When you log into a device with the real account, that device is then tied to your account, along with the devices that have been trusted and the devices that are part of the Family Sharing master account.
With FmPhn, when I did a scan of the account, all iphones, ipad, iwatches, including devices that were once trusted but no longer used, etc. showed up. The old include_device_type filtered out what you wanted.
With FmF, the contacts in in the FmF acct (different than the real acct) has a name (i.e., Gary) and the real email address (i.e., [email protected]). An Id code (i.e., MErf78Jkk90KE) is assigned to the contact by iCloud when the contact is added. I scan tracked devices to get the devienames (i.e., gary_iphone) and the email (i.e., gary_real), Then i scan the FmF account’s contacts and tie the emails to the Ids . When location information is available, It has the Id. So I use the Id to get the device (Id–>real email–>device).
At icloud.com. when you log into your FmF iCloud account, I have only 2 people in the Contacts Window, myself and my wife). I also see ourselves in the FmF window. In the FmF window, I can share my FmF account with my contacts. If you then go to the iphone (real acct) FmF App, the FmF account should show up and you can then share the real acct with the FmF account. If you want, you can go back to the FmF account and disable “Share my location”.
I did not originally set it up this way. I set the FmF acct up on my ipad, added myself and my wife in the contacts app and used the FmF app to add my real accts. It used AirDrop to add myself and my wife to the FmF acct on the ipad. Hopefully, you will still be able to add new accts without 2fa on a computer, then go to that acct on a device you are not following and use the same procedure.
I think.
It is a little confusing setting it up and I’m still working on some clear instructions. This discussion is helping me better describe what has to be done.
And yes, IOS 13, from what I’ve been told, won’t let you set up a new acct without 2fa so it will need to be done on a computer. Who knows when they will shut that down too and I’ll be back to the drawing board.
I think I should:
- Change/add setup instructions for doing it from a computer using icloud.com…
- Do a drawing to better explain how everything ties together.
- Add the steps of going from the computer to the device to the computer to set it up.
And this needs to be done releasing it of I’ll be fielding a lot of questions. Since it’s been a month since 2fa went into effect, maybe the release should be delayed (or done as a prerelease) since I am going out of town for the first 2-weeks of August and, based on experience, it’s not a good idea to release an update and then go away.
Your thoughts…
Yes, the iOS app v2 assigns a number to the device ( except the first one) rather than letting you enter a device name on the device. This is a serious design flaw since the beginning of v2 and I commented on this months ago. Robbie and Sean have said the device name will eventually be added to the iOS app but I don’t believe them.
The track_devices config parm has a field reserved for the iOS app v2 device number (e.g., _2). My current thinking is to let you put the device number into this field to tie it to the device name.
Been kinda of tied up with Implementing Find-my-Friends so iOS app v2 has been on the back burner. Probably in September. I Seem to remember a mobile device file that has info on the device (device name, id codes and they’re _# field) which I’ll also look into.
About disassociating the person tied to the device…not sure if it will be necessary. First, you need to track the device. Then, the person associated with the device would be automatically tracked.
The only issue I found with IOS 13 is creating the new iCloud account: I used a iPhone with IOS to create the account and 2FA was turned on automatically.
To be fair I did not pay that much attention when I was creating it, so there may have been an opportunity to not enable it.
However, I created a new iCould account via the web portal, making sure to leave 2FA disabled, and I was able to use the account without issue on my IOS 13 device.
I just updated iCloud3 to beta 5 to fix a couple of minor things and one major thing if you are running the beta versions.
- BREAKING CHANGE - The attribute home_distance was changed to zone_distance. This avoids confusing the meaning of the home_distance attribute when more than one zone is tracked.
- Fixed a bug when calculating movement that is used to determine if the device should be put into a stationary zone before the stationary zone had been set up.
Get the new version here
Get the new iCloud3 Documentation here
Get the full Change Log here
Gary
Keith…Currently, when you set up an icloud account, the default is 2FA and you have 60 days (might be 30) to manually change it to turn 2FA off or it’s permanently on. I don’t know if that option is still available if you create the account with IOS13…and we may not know until IOS13 becomes the official release.
My issue/question is that if you set up the account with a current iphone, you have to disable it from the current apple account and then re-enable it on the new account (sure it’s not called disable…but you know what I mean). Now it’s on the new account without 2FA and you can add names to the contact list and enable FMF. But, without connecting that iphone or ipad, you can’t enable FMF…it doesn’t even show up as an option on the new icloud account screen. If you do remove your phone from it’s current account and use it to enable the new account, any info from that phone on the old account is lost…that’s not a good option!! A few may have an iphone/ipad around that’s not being used that we could dedicate to that new account…but that’s the exception.
How did you set up the new account with your iphone…and enable FMF on the new account? Which account is your phone now attached to?
Gary or someone needs to create step by step procedures for setting up that new icloud account, assuming that a user has all their devices already associated with icloud and apple accounts. I know there are a few paths, but if not done, icloud3 may become obsolete and I don’t think any of us want that to happen.
Currently running my FMF account on an iPhone 5, iOS 10.3.3. I created the account on my W10 box using the web interface to iCloud. When connecting the iPhone 5 to the new FMF account, I selected merge contacts. While a majority of my contacts moved from my “real” icloud account to the FMF account, some did not. These contacts did appear on the iPhone 5, but were not listed when viewed from the web interface. I had to manually add them using the web interface on W10.
I’m attempting to track two devices on different icloud accounts. An iPhone 8 and 7 Both these phones are running 12.3.3 and iOS app beta build 62. FMF successfully tracks both of these devices on the iPhone 5, but I’m still working on icloud3 configuration to get it talking to the FMF account.
@gcobb321
Hi Gary.
This is a great addition to the home assistant community. Nice work for sure, it is amazing thank you.
I have been trying to set this up for over a day now and unfortunately i still have not been able to get it working.
I am confident I have followed the instruction correctly with the setup however that cannot be replied on. The one part that I am not sure about (amongst others) is the 2FA.
I have not received a notification from anything, HA or the ios app? As the service is still showing me as home (I am now at work) i am guessing things are not working correctly so far.
I have setup the ios app to the settings required, the only part I have not completed is the WAZE setup as I need to look into this a bit more to get it going
Could this be because I have not completed the 2FA Authentication process? If this is the case, I wonder if you could advise what is the best process to ensure I have covered all the required steps to get this working?
Looking forward to getting this great service working soon
cheers Bruce
- You won’t get a notification that your iCloud account needs to be reverified with the 6-number until it expires. It’s usually good for about 2 months and was probably set up ok right now. You can look at the cookie file in the config/icloud directory. The name will be your email address without the @.
- A lot goes on when icloud3 starts. Messages are written to the HA … log file. Restart Home Assistant and review the log file to see if there are any errors. Perhaps I should add info about this to the docs.
- DO NOT TURN ON 2FA ON YOUR FMF ICLOUD3 ACCOUNT. The caps are intentional because if you do, you are back in the same situation as before. If you have turned it on, turn it off.
- Have you logged into your fmf acct, opened the fmf app or fmf window on a computer? That verifies that your friends can be found. If the app can’t find them, neither can iCloud3…
If you want me to check out your non-secure fmf account, I will. Send me your fmf email address and fmf acct password to [email protected]. Others have and I was able to help them. I don’t need your real acct info, just the fmf one.
Gary
Hi Gary
thanks so much for your reply. I have sent you an email with some details and situations that will hopefully help resolve it. Thanks for now
Well it seems I’m missing something. I’m doing a fresh install of HA in a Proxmox CT so I can clean things up a bit and also be able to have python up to date to 3.7.
I installed your costume component through HACS integration. These are the errors I get after a restart of HA:
Since June, pyicloud.py module haas not worked and has been giving authentication errors. Working on a solution to it and hope to have it available soon.
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My core configuration for HomeAssistant has units as metric yet icloud3 shows imperial. How do I change it
deleted…I should learn to read documentation 