Got a quick response from Life360, but it’s not good:
Thank you for contacting Life360 about using Home Assistant. I can provide you information on this.
We understand the significance of using home automation programs with Life360. However, please note that we have stopped supporting home automation programs such as Hubitat, Home Assistant, Google Home, Alexa, IFTTT, and others. As a result, Life360 is no longer compatible with these programs.
At present, we have no plans to reintroduce compatibility with these programs. However, we value your feedback, and I will pass it on to the relevant team.
Have you a better write-up for the google maps implementation than their page? From the Google maps location sharing, I can see the tracked devices, however, I have no idea how that is supposed to get into Home Assistant. I do have the cookies for each tracked device as files on my HAOS install (assuming the directory is the same as the config yaml), however, no devices and no integration.
Any assistance you would provide will be GREATLY appreciated.
I don’t have Google Chrome installed on the PC I’m currently using, so I can’t say for sure, but you might need to set an option for it to enable its use in incognito tabs. FWIW, see link to my detailed instructions a few posts above using Microsoft Edge on a Windows PC. The part about “HTTP only” I don’t think applied to the cookie extension I used on Chrome (and which the official docs mention.)
Just in case someone else comes across this, you select the kebab icon for the extension to bring up the settings for it. Then enable the option to allow in “incognito” mode.
I did this recently, and find the Google maps service works perfectly. Very responsive.
I followed the guide. Its missing some vital information.
I use Chrome. I added the Get Cookies.txt plugin. Use the default settings (ie netscape format whatever that means!). Don’t fiddle with it.
Assuming you are already sharing Google maps location with your wife for example;
Get her to install the plugin on her profile (she obviously needs to be logged in to her Google profile)
Download her cookie file
Do the same on YOUR account
Transfer BOTH Cookie files to the HA Config Directory. I use WinSCP
rename both files as advised. REMOVE the .TXT bit at the end (this is the thing that caught me out)
Follow the configuration.yaml entry instructions.
Reboot HA.
Admittedly, it took a while, and an HA crash, for the entities to finally arrive…
That’s a good alternative to creating a new account just for HA, assuming you can use your own account and someone else’s that you’ve shared your location with. The main reason, of course, for the second account is to get all the details (including picture & battery level) from your own account, which for some reason, the integration doesn’t provide for the specified account.
I know this isn’t really the right thread - but related - can someone smarter than me build a Home Assistant ‘lite’ tracker app - that purely does the GPS location telemetry, and nothing more?
L360 seems bloated for this anyway.
Whether it’s pulling it from the phone GPS directly, or Google Maps, or whatever… Something very simple that all the family members can install, no frills. And integrates with HA very simply.
Where, for example, I don’t want to give my 12 year old the HA full companion app.
The Google Maps integration itself seems to be finickity long term, from what I read, and rather a hassle for 5 family members.
Edit - and receives actionable HA notifications! That would be cool…
Now that the Life360 integration is defunct, I have no problems with having any sort of discussion about replacements in this topic.
Having said that, there are several other topics where these discussions are also happening. You might want to also look them up. (Some may be linked above. I’ve linked them so many times, I forget where I’ve done that. lol)
Also, what you’re asking is really a feature request and belongs in its own topic in the Feature Requests category.
Now, with all that out of the way, regarding the Google Maps integration, as I’ve said before, yes, it’s harder to set up than it should be. I am planning to make some improvements, since that integration really needs some love. However, it can be set up, and once it is, it pretty much “just works.” I’ve been using it for years. And the HUGE advantage is, almost everyone has Google Maps on their phones already, even on iPhones. All it requires is setting up sharing, and there’s plenty of instructions out there about how to do that. No extra apps to install. No extra battery drain. The biggest issue is, as you’ve said, getting it set up in HA is a bit of a pain. But there have been some update instructions posted recently (I’ve done that myself.)
As far as the the finicky part, I’ve never had it only work for a day and then require going through the cookie grabbing/saving process over and over again. The cookie I’m using today I grabbed almost a year ago. I think it’s about to expire, so I’ll have to do it again. (Actually, I already have as a test, and that cookie has been working for days so far, and its expiration timestamp seems to be in over a year.)
Been following this with interest. Long time user of Life360 and again thanks to Phil for all his efforts over the years
What I have done since the demise of Life360 is use the HA App along with iCloud v3 integration.
I do have Nabu Casa, but don’t use it for remote access, so I thought i would share what I do and it may help someone.
We are all iOS here, so my personal solution may not work for all.
I use Tailscale for remote access to my whole network (I have a tail scale router that exposes my whole network to the tailnet so tail scale not installed on the HA box explicitly). I have an iOS shortcut that enables tailscale on mine and my wife’s phone when we disconnect from my home SSIDs and another that disables it when I go back on it. Worked flawlessly for about 6 months. This way the HA app is connected to HA whilst out and to be honest I havent noticed any difference between Life360 and this.
I may add Google Maps too and add it to the person entity or Phil’s composite tracker that I have also set up.
did you find a solution I’m running it off my Synology as well as trying the terminal in the HA do i need to go through the NAS.
did do “find / -name life360” dint get any folders displayed.
