I’m curious if there is any config or cache etc. that needs ‘resetting’ once moving the location of ‘Home’ within Home Assistant? Essentially I’ve plugged everything back in without any real issues. However my automation’s started going nuts, I work out it was because it constantly kept thinking I was at my previous ‘Home’ along with my wife. So at odd hours we would set off my automations thinking we’re away.
I’ve essentially just turn those automations off for now, but I’ve tried everything from
Reset the mobile iPhone app, to deleting and re-installing it. I’ve delete all reference to it via the logins. I went to general config and changed the home location and while it does pick up our location as ‘Home’ whenver we’re away it’s essentially picking us up at our old location. I am wondering if there is some sort of cache?
Yes, I changed my location via the general settings. Initially it all seemed to be working ok, as it detected both our iPhone (tracking) as ‘Home’ at the new location. It was only at 2am when the automation started and my Sonos fired up that I had to quickly work it all out.
I’ve noted now both devices are constantly jumping between my current and old location…
I’m not sure about the secondary zone comment? I don’t believe I have any config that references another location.
By secondary zones I mean do you have any other zones that would overlap the home zone. For example, in my config I have an “almost home” zone that encompasses my home zone.
If you go in your App settings → Manage Sensors → Location Zone maybe you can try setting the Minimum Accuracy to a lower setting. Mine is set to 100m.
Ah no I don’t have anything like that, I have several zones but nothing that overlap. I’ve also moved 30Km from previous location, it feels like there is some kind of setting or cache as it’s always only my previous location.
@tgcowell does this happen when on WiFi only or also when using only your mobile network?
Google and Apple, for example, geomaps WiFi hotspots by associating the WiFi mac and SSID with a previously detected GPS location. Thus, when connecting to a known network, you have an instant location. Otherwise, are you using an Apple TV as a home hub that has an incorrect location (since you’re an iPhone user)?
Yeah it happens. Google remembers where your location was based on the location of your old WAP mac, and its physical location when they were WiFi scanning/driving. You keep that SSID/mac and when GPS signal on your phone is bad and you are connected to that AP it will automatically assume your home at your old location.
Two fixes, change your SSID name, or, wait about 2 months. Thats what it took for it to stop doing it for me. Changing SSID was painful, too many things connected to bother doing that.
Thanks everyone, having to change my SSID is not an option. How annoying, I don’t really understand why it’s tied to Google? What part is linked? Is HA? Or somewhere else?
This is probably the easiest.
And this got me thinking: as a variation maybe the OP could try to alter the mac address of the AP, if possible with your router firmware, while keeping the same SSID.
The HA app gets the location data from the OS of your phone, which is reported based on location services with Googld/Apple (depends on your phone, obviously), who keeps databases on “which AP is at which location” for quick references, in case you are indoors, etc. when GPS is spotty. So until Google/Apple start tying your SSID to your new home location, you would see this happening from time to time.
Years ago when I had this problem, it took my Android phone / Google ~2 months to convert, and my iPhone, ~1 month.
Now, per the link on post #7 above, looks like it could be “two and a half weeks” these days.
Understood, thank everyone for your comments and assistance. I’ll sit on this one for a few weeks and see what happens. Will post here once it appears to have been updated for future reference.
I’m on an iPhone so let’s see if 2 and a half weeks is right… I’m stuck in a lock down at the moment however so I’m basically home 24/7 so in reality I don’t really need to worry about the automations working etc.
To expand on what @Hellis81 said: Your phone (running iOS in this case) has a location service. Apple (not Google, in this case) determines your location (actually, your phone does, but using Apple services and tech). GPS used to converge very slowly in the “old” days (if you ever used satnav a decode or two ago you’d be familiar with this). Then phones started using it, but it was still slow. Then came A-GPS (for assisted GPS) where the location of your cell tower could be used to seed your initial location and find your best location much faster. Then they wanted to improve this to give a location when between and even within buildings (like shopping malls) etc. where GPS signals can be weak. This is where knowing the location of a WiFi access point helps, under the assumption it’s location is fairly static. So, your phone (or possibly some backend service, depending on the who and what) can combine all of this and say: Bang! Here you are!
I stand corrected in this, since I haven’t tested or checked this recently, but the fast location feature only works if you are connected to either WiFi and your mobile network or both. You’ll notice that getting a location fix takes a lot longer otherwise. Keep in mind that your phone might also cache your last location, so it may look like it knows where you are, when it really doesn’t.
EDIT 1: Sorry, I missed @k8gg’s post. Some redundancy now on the thread, but I’ll leave this here.
EDIT 2: The pedant in me (for completeness’ sake) wants to add that IP addresses are used too, but can be wildly inaccurate.
(but keeping the old SSID)