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.
My family already had location sharing setup with me. I just used my account to set it up (so no A account/B account like the docs mentioned). The only things you lose are the picture from Google, real name, and battery percentage for the account being used. I just added the entity to my person card which already has my picture and name and I get battery from the HA app for me (which really means I just look at my phone screen since I’m not using the battery info for anything).
In case it’s not 100% clear, Life360 is officially not allowing 3rd-party integrations as part of security changes (so they say), but I (for now) just use HA’s app tracking, making sure the phone settings always allow Location services for HA. It seems to be working well.
At least for me on Android, it identified me as in my Home radius within 10 seconds, and I have shitty mobile coverage around my house. My family with iPhones also seem to be working well, but I haven’t checked timing yet.
Anyone else still have the Life360 integration installed? I have not had time to switch over to the Google Map integration yet but noticed yesterday that in my HA dashboard, Life360 appears to potentially be working again? No longer see unavailable for my member entities (all showing correctly it appears as Home, Away, etc.) and recent history also appears to be reflecting correctly… Amy I losing it over here?
It would be nice if they did re-enable the capability. For some reason, my wife’s Google account will not let me share her location. I haven’t tried real hard to figure it out but kids and mine all work fine.
What version of HA are you on? It appears the Life360 Integration has been removed (though didn’t find in quick changelog search). Good news for me is the location tracking of the mobile Companion app has been a good substitute.
Core 2024.3.0
OS 12.0
Frontend 20240306.0
Interesting. Went back to 2023.12.4 on my test system and added my Life360 test account … AND IT WORKS!!
I’ll have to try out my custom version of the Life360 integration and see if it also still works on the latest & greatest HA. I’ll keep everyone posted…
Two caveats: 1) It doesn’t work with my “main” Life360 account on which I verified my phone (that whole thing), and 2) it may stop working at any moment like before.
UPDATE: Strange. My custom version of the integration also works on 2023.12.4, but not on 2024.3.0 (with the exact same config entry with the exact same Life360 credentials.) I guess this is what is to be expected by Cloudflare’s blocking technology.
I think I’ve identified why some of the recent attempts to get this working again have been successful, and others haven’t. The server API has definitely changed (yet again.)
But I think I have an idea of how to make it work again (assuming no more changes to the server API.) The changes necessary are a bit extensive. I will probably need to overhaul the life360 pypi.org package, as well as the HA integration. I’ll do this with my custom version of the integration. This will take some time. I’ll keep everyone posted on my (hopefully continued) progress…
