Hey guys, I´m afraid I got an issue that I cant resolve…
HA recognizes my zones correctly, so if I leave my home zone it shows me as “away” and when I am at home it shows “at home”.
I tryed setting a few zone based automations but they never worked, so I created another zone in a larger radius around my house to activate my thermostats but but again the automations dont trigger.
It doesnt matter if I set them to leave or enter automations dont work.
Currently there is only one user configured and I am using the latest version of the mobile app with all needed permissions set.
So here for example my location data for today:
(it´s, in german but basically it just says: recognized as away/home)
alias: Heizung Nach hause kommen
description: ''
trigger:
- platform: zone
entity_id: person.dakazze
zone: zone.9km_radius
event: enter
condition: []
action:
- service: smart_thermostat.set_pid_mode
data:
mode: 'off'
target:
entity_id: bla
bla bla
I created both automations (and the other ones that dont work too) using the HA UI, selecting the zones and entities from the drop-down menu so I have no idea why this is not working…
And what makes the whole thing really funny, is that there are a few false away triggers at night yesterday and one of my automations got triggered then but not when I came back home from work today and that is this one:
So, I will give this a bit more thought but later…just adding my 2 cents.
I have a zone-change tracker stuff setup and the most important element is the device, we have 4 different mobile phones with 2 operators and the results differ between them but oddly also depending on the day, i.e. one phone can have location spots every 100m, the day after 1 km.
All in all, on average the zone-entry and zone-leave works fine …as lomg as the *^@#( mobile collaborates
Any other ideas?
Today I had the same thing happen:
Went away → HA says I am not home → no automation triggers
Came home 5 hours later → HA says I am home → no automations trigger
I am starting to get crazy over this and loose faith in HA -.-
Just to be clear, it is usually not (!) HA… HA depends on the information transferred to it for which HA usually has no control on quality.
Example: we have two exactly the same phones, the geolocation of 1 is reasonably exact, the other is at least 30 min to 2 hrs late and I cannot get it resolved, this is visible on the phone and not in HA…so donot blame it all on (really) wonderfull HA
But how can it not be HA that causes the problem when locations/zones get updated correctly and within reasonable time but the triggers just dont get pulled?
I would understand if my zone-data would be all over the place that HA cant do its job but the situation here is simple: I leave home → HA says I left home → HA does not pull a trigger that is set to “leaving home”
OK…so maybe I did not get the whole details part.
If I look at my sensors combined with the phone location (ex HA) and the companion location then the only issue I see is the phone itself.
I have similar simple automation that just sends notifications on zone-exit and zone-enter and this works fine. I simulated the phone lat/lomg via developer/states to see if the automation triggers as expected as well and tracked the changed/update datetime.
I repeat that one of the phones has odd differences with the same model bought 2 weeks later but I managed to identify that this is the phone itself (or the provider??)
Assuming you also use the companion app, maybe try to find out how the sensors are set to react. On iPhone one can change not too much but a.o. the update frequency (not existing on Android) and on Android there are many more setting then on iOS…a.o. on Zone
Added… I also reinstalled the app on another phone after 2022.03 rolled out and the difference is amazing…the app-update apparently is not working in full (I stopped analyzing details…no time)
Use device as a trigger, not zone. When the device leaves a zone, trigger the automation. Works well for me.
To get mine to work properly I had to add a condition. If I leave a zone worked fine but sometimes I would get a false trigger from gps issues showing me entering the zone when I never left… So, I added a condition that as long as my phone was connected to the WIFI, the automation will not trigger. So, if I enter the zone and my phone is not connected to the wifi, the automation will trigger. If Im home and the GPS goes wonky and thinks Im 2 streets over, it wont trigger when it realizes Im home since Im still connected to the wifi.
alias: Open Garage Door
description: ‘’
@vingerha yea, most issues I found while googling for my specific problem also have been about phones/app that failed to report the correct status to HA but thats just not the case for me. HA knows my zone/location but still doesnt react to changes as it should.
@Rich37804 Thank you very much for the suggestion I will try that and report back if it worked but I guess that this could be the solution! The condition is also pretty neat since this would definitely reduce false triggers that could leave me in the dark ^^
I have two phones using HA Companion app. in HA the location of each phone is correct, but it still shows both as being at home.
All sensors are updating on both phones, geolocation is correct but device_tracker does not update to the correct zone. it doesn’t even show as being away when not in home zone
I am having a similar issue to @iamgrog68 . I have a two-fold question: First, I know it is because I am missing a step or programming. I do not have an external url set up, so is that what I need in order for HA to work on my companion app when I’m not connected to my network? My system correctly shows when at Home but will not update to away when gone. It might show as “unavailable” but that is it. I am running two iPhones (an iPhone 11 promax and iPhone 12 mini).
Second, is setting up the external url above what will allow HA to know that my phone is outside the zone and thus also when it enters the zone? If not, what do I need to do in addition to an external url?
I did finally get it up and running using DuckDNS and it works great! The wife’s phone automatically opens the garage when she gets very close to home and the porch lights come on for me after dark when I arrive, so I got it working correctly.
@aparker21
I am also playing around with this. Want to activate ring to open for my smart lock.
Duckdns + zone detection is setup and works.
But sometimes not reliable, because of phone sleeping, doze mode, …
In know there is high accurate mode, which triggers frequently position updates when the bigger selected radius is entered.
Do my questions:
Which radius did you pick for home zone?
So you have high accuracy mode enabled in background location sensor settings in the app?
I’m having similar issues discussed here and looking for a resolution.
I’m using the HA app on 2 iPhones, I have some location based automations set up to arm and disarm Alarmo based on the iPhones entering/leaving the home zone. These automatons have worked perfectly for months. All of a sudden, despite the logs showing the phones entering and leaving the home zone, the automations are not firing. Nothing has changed as far as the automations are concerned. I’m a little confused as to why they just are not reliably firing.
