Note: I just read about the news for the iOS companion app so I don’t know if the current state of location updates has improved.
Like myself, many android using home assistant users have a significant other with an iOS device. In my attempts earlier this year to get reliable location data into home assistant, I found that the iOS companion app was very unreliable. I ended up having to settle on wifi presence detection through unifi. This worked well enough if the phones wifi radio was always on. Inevitably the radio was switched off and automations stopped working correctly. I then began to think of other methods.
Back in 2015-2017 when I discovered home assistant, I configured the Google Maps Location Sharing Integration since I didn’t want to meddle with BLE or app based MQTT location. As I was still in college and didn’t have many devices to automate, I decided the RPi could be put to better use. Fast forward to 2019, I set up home assistant again. Since iOS location was not working I set up the Unifi Device tracker. Only today I realized I could use Google maps location sharing since my significant other and I already use it. I also just used my own account instead of creating a new account for home assistant to use since I get my own location through the HA android app. I haven’t tested this for long so I can’t promise anything about performance/update times.
Just felt like I should share this for all the others that struggle with iOS location.