Looks like iCloud will do that…same as Life360
I am just asking if this is considered to be redundancy for HA Mobile App, or it is just the same source
Just out of curiosity, why do you need Wireguard tunnel? I do not need it for geolocation and HA Mobile App
I try and disconnect as many of my services from the internet as possible. I just don’t trust much these days…
Admittedly, I really need to take a long hard look at this as am not honestly sure I am achieving much by this, but Wireguard does help when I am away and need access to all my services from work for example
This is probably just their generic approach to tunnel traffic back home vice running over public wifi/cell towers. I do the same thing.
The HA app has location sensors to use GPS data that you can enable and that will work regardless of using Wireguard.
There’s always the Ping (ICMP) - Home Assistant integration that can be added if you use reserved IPs on wifi for the phones AND have MAC randomization disabled (since that breaks reservations). That can be used to determine whether or not you are connected to home wifi (presuming you have ICMP enabled between HA and the network that your phones are on). This creates a “device_tracker” entity that can be added to the Person entity for location tracking.
You could even use it in an automation to toggle the location sensor on your phones if you don’t want it turned on all the time.
Yes, they are two different ways to get location information (and other stuff I guess, especially with the mobile app, which I don’t use, so don’t know much about.)
But redundancy isn’t necessarily a bad thing, even when running & using two apps on the same phone/device. E.g., until Life360 stopped working, for several people, who already had Life360 & Google Maps on their phones, I used the two corresponding HA integrations, and combined them with my custom composite integration (which predates the person entity, and IMHO, does a better job of processing location data from multiple location sensors.) Since these phones already had both apps, it really had no impact to use them both from HA.
If you wanna go iCloud route, there’s a better integration available with lots of customizations and extra sensors: GitHub - gcobb321/icloud3: iCloud3 v3 Prerelease is now available, Enable Beta Versions in HACS. ---- iCloud3 is an advanced iDevice tracker that uses Apple iCloud account and HA Companion App data for presence detection and location based automations.
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If you listened to the HA podcast fo 2024.1, the message was yes they are doing it on purpose. There are reported responses to paid Life360 customers on their requests for service that Life360 will be actively removing access to all 3rd parties, including all the big ones and will only be allowing access thru their app.
Paulus also reported that their repeated queries to Life360 by Nabu-Case are being ghosted.
My info is from here. This is a skip-to link from Wednesday’s release party…
https://www.youtube.com/live/dRwzSkKYIDs?si=F37tg-uGtpqLkB2j&t=5204.
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Lucky you. Our IT is blocking external ports, so Wireguard in no use for me in the office.
But why do you need it for mobile device? Laptop is not enough?
Yea, we are lucky at work - for now.
Mobile: tbh, I need to stop doing that - There is really no reason not to anymore. I remember a long while back I struggled with external access (really random access experience, I suspect it had something to do with duckdns, although I didn’t know it at the time), so after much fiddling, I just disabled it, and lived with it.
I’ve received various requests “not to give up”. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Please see this post for more details.
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I sent a pretty stern email to life360 this morning.
Hi,
I just want to inform you that I will be cancelling my gold subscription after several years of being a happy customer due to your blatant disregard of the importance of providing a viable API for Home Assistant integration.
You chose to block the unofficial API access deliberately, all in the name of user security and failed to provide a legitimate API for access. As a Security Engineer at Meta myself I find this reasoning extremely weak on the technical level and it demonstrates the level of incompetence of your engineers or the level of arrogance of your upper management who approved or made this decision.
Sincerely,
Greg Takacs
I doubt I’ll be moving mountains with this email but they need to know. They could even provide the API only for paying customers if they chose to. Rather they just not provide the feature. Such a short sighted business decision.
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So interestingly the use AI to respond to emails and it sent this beauty:
Your request has been updated. To add additional comments, reply to this email.
Hi, thank you for reaching out to Life360 Customer Care.
We use an advanced artificial intelligence system that leverages cutting-edge technology to efficiently understand your inquiry and provide a relevant response.
To cancel your Gold membership, please follow these steps:
- Open the Life360 app and tap the membership tab.
- Tap on Manage Membership.
- Tap on Cancel Membership.
- If you do not see the Cancel Membership option, follow the steps for App Store Subscribers.
- Tap on Confirm Cancellation.
Please note that we do not refund any unused time on a subscription, any license or subscription fees for any portion of the Service, any content or data associated with your account, or anything else. Upon canceling any Subscription Features, your subscription will be valid until your paid period is completed.
If this response does not fully address your concerns, please reply with additional details, and our team will assist you.
This answer is based on the “Cancel My Membership - Part 2” article.
Thanks for the instructions. I just followed those steps to successfully delete my account. After more than 4 years of them harvesting my data I am done! Screw this company.
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I took @pnbruckner’s suggestion to replace Life360 with the google maps tracker. So far, so good. Thanks a ton for all your work over the years on this @pnbruckner.
Owntracks hasn’t been very reliable in my experience; it repeatedly becomes unavailable even when location is set to always allow.
May try the iCloud v3 custom component as well. That setup seems a little more involved, so going to need a couple cups of coffee. But it looks like there’s a big upside to getting it going because it could track the Apple Watches and other apple devices.
Also, someone mentioned redundant trackers as a problem, but I think it’s a good thing when set up correctly (like the way @pnbruckner suggested). By my reasoning, since trackers may have different scan intervals and their intervals aren’t set to scan at the same time, the more trackers you have, the faster a change could be detected. Also, one tracker integration may stop working (like with Life360). So, I think multiple / redundant trackers can be more reliable and faster. Could make a difference when pulling up to the garage.
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Is this the Google maps integration that requires 2 Google accounts to setup?
Yes. At first it looks challenging to setup. But, it’s not hard at all. For my setup, account B is the one running on HA. Then I made separate A accounts for each family member to share with account B.
Also, I noticed that after exporting the cookies for account B and setting it up with HA, I had to make sure to close down the browser I used to create / export the cookies with. At first I had left it open, and the tracker entities kept changing to “Away”. Once I closed it down, the entities worked appropriately. Wondering if maybe it’s because there can only be one instance of the authenticated session for account B. Maybe it was just me. Not sure.
Follow up, just installed the iCloudv3 custom component. It wasn’t that bad. I tried installing v2 a year or so ago and got really confused. But, I think it’s easier now.
It doesn’t actually require two accounts. You just lose some data for the device that the account being used would have. I already had both kids and wife sharing location to my main Google account so I just used it for the integration. The only thing I’m missing out on is battery level for my device, which I don’t need the Maps integration to have. For everyone else that’s sharing to me, I get battery along with location.
I had a similar issue. Used regular Chrome to get the cookie, it worked for a few minutes but stopped working when I navigated in the tab (can’t recall if I just switched accounts or refreshed the page or what). I ended up using an incognito tab to grab the cookie instead and it’s been working for a few days.
I have been having some intermittent issues where the entities will flip to “away” for 1-3 minutes at random and then go back to ‘home’ without anyone leaving.
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I recently set up iCloud3 without much issue. I haven’t been able to get the “find my” service to work to play a sound a locate an iPhone however. I can do it with the built-in iCloud integration, but I can’t make it work with iCloud3 for some reason.
That would be a real problem if it intermittently changes to “Away” as it would trigger automations. Will be on the lookout for that.
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