iOS Companion App only updates location after opening app (background zone exit delayed?)

Mobile Apps Home Assistant Companion for Apple
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1

Home Assistant Core: 2026.5.4 (Docker on Raspberry Pi 5)

Home Assistant Companion App: 2026.7.0 (2026.2208)

Phone: iPhone 17 Pro (also seeing similar behavior on my wife’s iPhone 17 Pro Max)

iOS: 26.5.2

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to determine whether this is a configuration issue, an iOS behavior, or possibly a Companion App bug.

Symptoms

When I leave home, Home Assistant often continues to report my location as Home even after I’ve arrived at work.

If I manually open the Home Assistant Companion App, my location usually updates shortly afterward.

Manual Update Location also works immediately.

This makes me suspect that background location updates (specifically exiting the Home zone) are not occurring reliably.

Current configuration

  • Home Assistant running in Docker on a Raspberry Pi 5
  • WireGuard VPN configured and working
  • Internal URL configured
  • External URL configured
  • Companion App connected successfully
  • device_tracker source type is GPS
  • Person entity linked to the correct device tracker
  • Duplicate mobile device registrations have already been removed
  • Location permission is Always
  • Background App Refresh enabled
  • Manual Update Location works

Example timeline

Today’s test:

  • 8:50 AM — Left home
  • 9:07 AM — Already at work, Home Assistant still showed Home
  • Opened the Home Assistant app
  • Shortly afterward the location updated and my device_tracker state changed from home to not_home.

Yesterday I saw an even longer delay where Home Assistant didn’t mark me Away until much later in the day.

Other observations

Battery sensors continue updating normally.

Manual location updates work.

WireGuard connectivity has been verified.

Safari can access Home Assistant remotely.

This seems specific to automatic background location updates.

Question

Has anyone else seen delayed or missing Home zone enter/exit events on recent iOS / Companion App versions?

If so, were you able to resolve it?

I’m especially interested in hearing from anyone using WireGuard with the Companion App, although I don’t currently think the VPN is the root cause since manual updates work correctly.

Thanks!

2

Yes, quite frequently discussed in other threads in these forums. You may wish to search and see what others have tried to solve this (what seems to be Apple specific) problem.

3

Chasing this problem myself. I have a automation to open my garage door when I get home and it’s not working at the moment. I have recently been messing around with ESPresense and think I may have broken something in doing that. It’s driving me a little crazy trying to figure it out but really seems like my iphone location (gps) is not updating in a timely manner.

4

Thanks for the replies. I’m seeing something very similar, although I’m not using ESPresense.

My observations:

  • iPhone has Location = Always.
  • Background updates appear to work intermittently.
  • device_tracker often stays home until I manually open the Home Assistant Companion App.
  • As soon as I open the app, my person entity immediately changes to not_home (or home when returning).
  • Manual Update Location also works.

So it doesn’t appear that GPS is failing. It seems like the Companion App isn’t consistently reporting zone transitions while running in the background.

Has anyone found a reliable fix for this?

5

I’m having the same problem on my iPhone 17 Pro. I tried deleting the app and data, but nothing worked. Even with iCloud v3 integration, the app always arrives late or when opening the app. I hope someone finds a solution/workaround.

6

I’ve same problems …
The only bypass I see for now is to create shortcuts that are based on primitives known from Apple home. For example, I create a Apple shortcut when “I leave my Home” (in the Apple sense of the term) that positions a home assistant variable “HomeMode=off”

7

I may have to do this as a workaround. Use apple geofencing and have it tell home assistant that I’m home or away.

8

Had a Companion App update this morning for my iPhone. See it has a Fix zones sync. Hope this works for me. I’ve been having to open the app and refresh it to trigger a zone entry. Weird thing is my wife’s phone has been working flawlessly. Same app versions but hers has had a slightly different look to it. Different HA configurations I guess. She can only look, not change.