iOS app device tracking - do I need to expose HA to the internet?

Mobile Apps Home Assistant Companion for Apple
1

This is probably a dumb question… but I can’t get a straight answer. I have HA installed on a RasberryPi, I have an iPhone with TestFlight and the beta iOS app installed. Device Tracker Component has a checkmark but it doesn’t seem to be updating location in the HA UI. Is it because I haven’t setup DuckDNS/LetsEncrypt and setup firewall rules to expose my HA instance to the internet? Notifications work great but is that because notifications are traffic going from HA to my phone but in order for tracking to work information has to go from my phone to HA and for that to happen I need to give HA “public access”?

Thanks in advance for your noob patience.

2

Yes it needs to be accessible to your iPhone, if you are outside your local network i.e. at work then it needs to be able to connect back to your HA install.