Hello, I hope someone will guide me for a right solution/workaround.
I’m using HA for 4+years now but only for like month or so I’m seeing an issue with being “At home”/“Away” randomly changes, even if I’m not moving. Needless to say this “breaks” many of my automations which relay on my/others presence at home.
It seems to be a general Android issue as I can also see my location being reported approx. 30-40m outside my home in other apps. HA Companion app has access/permission to use exact location and running in the background (flushing cache did not help). I also tried to compensate the drift extending the radius of my home zone but this did not help either (it seems to be ignored by HA, why?). The only thing I can do I to open Google Maps (or any other location driven application) and after a few seconds my location is being corrected to my precise location.
The issue is also present on my my wife’s and 2 kids phones.
All are Android devices (Android 11/13/15).
The issue is present on every phone. GPS does not work indoors. It requires a clear view of the sky.
So indoors your phone uses wifi lookup and cell tower triangulation, which is much less accurate.
A better way to determine if you are home or not is to check which wifi network your phones are connected to. The companion app provides a sensor for this.
At least for my case GPS does work indoors, simply launching Google Maps proves that. I’ve just downloaded GPS Test to do (my) sanity check; 33 satellites in view, in use 15+, worst case accuracy +/-10m on the ground floor (but +/-4-6m on avg), and average SNR 26-33 depending on where I’m in the house. After launching GPS Test on my phone I’ve accessed HA via computer and my location in HA has been updated accordingly - to my almost exact location. And again I’ve moved to “At home” from being “Away” state. I did not access HACA on my phone at this time; just GPS Test app. Weird, ha?
I know there are plenty of ways (more or less reliable) to determine if I’m in my house or even in which room of the house. But this is not the question about it.
Thanks for the sensors tip; it might be on to something. Looking at HACA sensors I can see that my phone’s High Accuracy Mode and Interval sensors say “Unknown”, which is probably not expected. Has HACA lost its ability to pull down precise location? Permission are there, settings are there (btw. HACA is the only app allowed to access precise location while being run in the background) but if that’s true it would explain my recent issues. With no application that would enforce precise location, after a few minutes phone location is going to be approx only (>100m radius), and garbage is reported to HA.
Responding to myself. The only issue at my home zone.
I spent whole week comparing to other places (my workplace, kids’ school) and no issues there. Location tracking is very solid, no major drifting or jumps. For most of the time phones are left alone and not used extensively (especially while kids are at school). Not to mention my office building or school is giving the worse GPS signal quality. But still, on Thursday a moved around my office complex and I was able to track my location in HA with decent accuracy.
So what gives? What is causing the drift at home zone? I have no clue.
Anywhere else location is correct, tracking is also decent. As workaround I “moved” my home zone somewhere in between my actual location and reported location (mostly due to home zone radius did not cover the drift - another issue - but it should, also increasing it did not had any effect, if it would I’d never noticed the issue).
Again - this never happened until last month or so.
For most of the time so far my location has been reported exactly at my house premises (black frame) only with very occasional jumps. Thought about jamming but is it likely if while any GPS app is active, location is fixed and reported correctly on map in matter of seconds? Also drift is always in the same direction, I presume with jamming on it would be more random drift?
Same issue, but it is not too long since it started, tho very annoying. Puts me in away mode and turns off all the lights when my wife is not home. She have a newer iPhone i have s22 plus.
Anything else i can do to find out what the issue is?
Tom already posted a few good ways to get around it.
Other than those… Remove the roof of the house to get a better view of the sky.
You can also increase the home zone size.
You could make your automation not trigger unless you have been away for a longer period of time.
You could create a zone outside home that is a buffer zone which your automations does not trigger in.
