is there any way to improve the location tracking in the HA app on iOS?
it’s borderline un-usable as the frequency it updates location makes it unreliable.
there is 1 device currently out of the home, and the last time HA updated location was 32 minutes ago, which is not where the device currently is.
there is no issue with location reporting on the device itself as apples “find my” correctly shows the current live location (which is nowhere near where HA says it is)
in the app settings the following are already set
Location Permission - Always
Location Accuracy - Full
Background Refresh - Enabled
Update Sourced - all enabled
that document doesn’t tell me anything i don’t already know.
location tracking still isn’t reliable.
i had 1 device leave home (this was picked up and reported), then 30 minutes later that device was in another defined zone (seen by apple “find my”), but home assistant didn’t update the location so the device remained about 1 mile away from the zone for the rest of the night.
at no point was the device out of network coverage, so why didn’t home assistant update it’s location?
if it only updates if the cell tower changes then it makes the entire location based tracking process completely useless, especially if there are automations that rely on zone entry/exit etc.
I’ve had experience of this myself. My phone (iPhone 15) seems to be fine. But my wife’s iPhone 13 is a little hit or miss at times. I’ve compared settings on both phones and they’re the same.
It’s caused me a lot of head scratching moments, when automations either run at odd times or not at all. Always boils down to my wife’s phone not updating it’s location.
I’m in the UK and running IOS 26.1 on both phones. If there is a way of extracting logs, I’d be happy to share mine.
showing last updated 2 hours ago, but that’s not where the device currently is - as proven by using apples “find my”.
The device is actually quite a bit further to the south west, but i’m guessing because the cell tower hasn’t changed since the last time it was able to update then it just sits there in the wrong location.
The document tells you the developers have done all they can with the available api.
It also tells you a number of ways to improve the tracking yourself. So use one or more of those methods. As you “already know” I won’t bother wasting our time explaining how.
clearly i’m not the only person seeing this problem, and the document doesn’t give any ways to improve that haven’t already been implemented.
but, yes, i agree you shouldn’t waste any more of your time in a thread that you aren’t able to offer anything other than link to a document that doesn’t offer anything new.
EDIT
honestly i pretty much ignored this function until recently. And never cared about function or purpose of this until I see this post
Now that I look at my location data history, clearly you are using this wrong. The app. I think owntracks or some integration will give you what you are looking for. The basic purpose of this is to provide input data for zone based automations. It is NOT device tracker. I have many zones that I add for fun but as I look it clearly updates each of these area when entered. No location is not exact but this is OK because its intent is General area / Defined area (zone).
at grocery - Husband near store >> notify wife “husband near store, need anything at grocery”
3PM - wife and husband show at “work” zones >> notify family “who is picking up kids today?”
kids arrive home - notify parents “child arrived home”
Kid not at home - look at HA >> child shows at “Friends house” zone or “park” zone
for this purpose the precision tracking by time is not needed
maybe you knew this?
Bigger point is it is not useless or poor. Its goal may not match your expectations but your expectations were not the goal. There is another app w/ integration for what you want though.
