IOS App & iBeacon Issue

Mobile Apps Home Assistant Companion for Apple
1

Hi
I’m trying to setup the IOS app to track home/not home using an iBeacon and i’m struggling to get it working. I know my iBeacon is transmitting and the HA app is setup correctly as I can see the iBeacon in location settings but it still won’t work. Can anyone help?

In configuration.yaml I have the following

ios:
device_tracker:

In customize.yaml I have

zone.home:
beacon:
uuid: EBEFD083-70A2-47C8-9837-E7B5634DF524
major: 58519
minor: 34712

and in known_devices.yaml I have track: true for the specific device

1 Like
2

I’ve now got some of it working. The app gives me a notification that I have exited home via iBeacon but it doesn’t update my device to away

3

I’ve tried this whole beacons thing but I can’t make it work either. Did you get yours working?

Looking at https://home-assistant.io/docs/ecosystem/ios/location/ seemed pretty straight forward but… NOPE!

So this is how my zone section looks like:

zone:
  name: Home
  latitude: REDACTED
  longitude: REDACTED
  radius: 40
  icon: mdi:account-multiple

And this is how my customise looks like:

  zone.home:
    track_ios: false
    beacon:
      uuid: FDA50693-A4E2-4FB1-AFCF-C6EB07647825
      major: 10
      minor: 48

Also on the iOS app I make sure to rename my phone device to test this and avoid other device trackers to change its status, so it's called `jonatans_iphonetest`.

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Also it seems to picking up correctly configuration from my Home Assistant server

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On Home Assistant web ui it shows up correctly too: ![|72x96](upload://rT5IjwoT1ZpfCsyntSRX9flC92K.png)

BUT, if I turn off the beacon or disable BT it should change to away, right? well, it’s stuck on “Home” state forever :/.

Scanning beacons seems to show up, UUID is correct as well as the minor major settings. What’s going on? o.O

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Thanks for any help! really appreciate it :slight_smile:

4

I think one of the issues is the app uses the phone location and iBeacons instead of only using the iBeacon

5

I’m now seeing iBeacon exit notifications when my device enters the iBeacon range. I’m really not sure what is going on and if I have my config right. Can anyone help?

6

I’ve given up with the HA app now and moved to Owntracks & MQTT. I’ve got owntracks in manual mode so it doesn’t use my GPS but it still fires when I enter and exit my iBeacon.

I followed this link to setup MQTT & Owntracks

7

is it working correctly?

8

Early days but it seems to be working OK at the moment. I’ve had a single notification to say I have exited the zone whilst in a specific room at the back of my house.

I’ve already got a long range iBeacon (link) but I might need to get another one if it keeps losing the signal in the specific room & just use the same UUID & major/minor values.

Something else I did is change the zone to passive in HA as this article says a passive zone can only be entered by iBeacon and not GPS

9

Unfortunately I have found this still to be an issue… It’s fair to say that the HA iOS app still does not work correctly with Beacons. I have spent sooooo much time trying to get this to work with no luck - only getting incorrect “exit” notifications as well. I hope someone can revisit the code (and the doco!) for this component (happy to help test/troubleshoot to get it working) as it seems unnecessary to use OwnTracks when everything could be done natively. Off to setup OwnTracks/MQTT for now… :frowning:

1 Like
10

Same here.

As you, I would like to only have to use one app on the phone for the tracking. My beacons a for certain within reach, but the iOS is just way to inconsistent.

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11

Just a +1 here. My iOS app shows enter/exit notifications (I believe the incorrect “exit” instead of “entry” is just a typo), but the app doesn’t seem to push the location update back to HA.

OwnTracks is working pretty well.

Edit: This thread is relevant : iOS App and iBeacon Support