New Google Home device tracker Component - Introduced in HA 0.83

Is there any progress in tracking phones? I see that 0.88.0 delivers more functionality with timers and alarms, but I still have issues with tracking. This would be great for room tracking, if it worked.

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Installed this todayā€¦ do I really want to track my BT keyboard lolā€¦ do I really want to see 10 different devices and constantly changing device idā€™sā€¦ how am I supposed to link any device to any person for presence detection? Would be a great component but utterly useless.

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Iā€™d like to know how to disable the device tracker. The alarms and timers is sweet, and Iā€™ll probably want to hook up some automations off the back of them.

Iā€™m using an entirely different solution for presence detection of my ble devices (mqtt_room) and until the device tracker entities start to make sense, Iā€™d prefer not to see an entry per device per bluetooth signal seen.

It would seem that a vital option of ā€˜only_track_known_devicesā€™ or something similar is neededā€¦

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Problem is the device ID is constantly changing

So I guess it would need to be MAC based?

Itā€™s really unfortunate that the new version of this completely changed how the device_tracker's in known_devices.yaml get populated.
Previously, the trackers had MAC addresses populated; so, changing the first line made a nice and easy entity_id to use.
For example, the old way:

roberts_phone_gh_office:
  hide_if_away: false
  icon: mdi:google-home
  mac: 192.168.85.20_80:B0:3D:D6:B2:5E
  name: Robertā€™s Phone - GH Office
  picture:
  track: true

created a nice little device_tracker.roberts_phone_gh_office to put in my automations, scripts and lovelace cards.

Now, with the new format:

192_168_85_20_80_b0_3d_d6_b2_5e:
  hide_if_away: false
  icon: mdi:google-home
  mac:
  name: Robertā€™s Phone - GH Office
  picture:
  track: true

it creates a horrible looking (and functioning) device_tracker.192_168_85_21_80_b0_3d_d6_b2_5e to use instead.

Now, it may not be a huge deal to grin and bear it, but I have 4 Google Homes tracking 2 phones and 2 iBeacons. So thatā€™s 16 new entries to change in my known_devices.yaml that is currently 233,113 lines long. Yesā€¦ two hundred thirty three thousand, one hundred thirteen lines.

Oh yeahā€¦ then this happens when I try to jenga the newly made entry from the bottom and put it up top:

Plus, I now have to change the buttload of automations, scripts, template sensors and cards theyā€™re in.

Why you gotta break changes so hard Assistant Homies?

P.S. I do love you guys for putting so much work into this project; it can just get really frustrating dealing with all the breaking changes sometimes. :disappointed_relieved:

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With the new official component released recently, I dont know how to add multiple google home devices. Did anyone figured out how to do it?
Thanks.

googlehome:
  devices:
#Google Home Mini Bedroom
    - host: 192.168.85.23
      rssi_threshold: -100
      track_alarms: true
#Google Home Mini Bathroom
    - host: 192.168.85.24
      rssi_threshold: -100
      track_alarms: true
#Google Home Living Room
    - host: 192.168.85.21
      rssi_threshold: -100
      track_alarms: true
#Google Home Mini Office
    - host: 192.168.85.20
      rssi_threshold: -100
      track_alarms: true

Wonderful!
Thanks a lot @RevelRob.

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And that while ugly randomly changes constantly

Why would it change?
The 192_168_85_21 part of it is the ip of the Google Home and the 80_b0_3d_d6_b2_5e part is the mac of the device being tracked.

It is not using the real Mac. It is making up some pseudo crap that keeps changing.

Something is definitely wrong in your setup.
Are you sure that the mac addresses youā€™re seeing arenā€™t for other devices nearby? Like even your neighbours?
What are you trying to track by the way? A phone? iBeacon? If phone, what kind?

iPhone and ipad.

The Mac addresses donā€™t relate to anything realā€¦ looking up the MAC address on an address checker says no known manufacturer.

Discussion with Ludeeus on github indicated this is the correct behaviour.

Well, the first thing is that this doesnā€™t play well with iOS devices. Only marks them as home when the bluetooth screen is active (Settings > Bluetooth).
Even though youā€™re SOL with iDevices, try this as a testā€¦
On your iPhone, go to Settings > General > About and note the MAC address under ā€œBluetoothā€.
For example, mine is 80:B0:3D:D6:B2:5E
Then, note the ip address of the Google Home youā€™re using in the component.
Mine is 192.168.85.20.
Open Settings > Bluetooth on your iPhone and stand beside the Google Home for like 30 seconds.
Open your known_devices.yaml and do a search for your ip and mac but formatted like this from my example: 192_168_85_20_80_b0_3d_d6_b2_5e.

That should be your device to track.

I was getting a random MAC addressā€¦ Iā€™m well aware of how t find my MAC address. In any case if it only works when Iā€™m on the BT screen of my phone (like Iā€™m never in BT discovery unless pairing a new device) what use is it if itā€™s not going to detect presence in normal operation. Answer:NONE

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Thatā€™s kinda how bluetooth presence works, you canā€™t force it to only find the device you want. It scans for ALL BT devices it can ā€œhearā€. Those random mac addresses are from nearby BT devices that are advertising.

Here wouldnā€™t be the best place to complain about this. Itā€™s how the Google Home functions. Nothing HA can really do about it.
For a better BT presence tracker made for HA that works with iOS devices, check out GitHub - andrewjfreyer/monitor: Distributed advertisement-based BTLE presence detection reported via mqtt
His program is pretty great and tracks everything Iā€™ve thrown at it.

Well yes indeed but they donā€™t bear ANY relation to the actual MAC address of any device. Thatā€™s the problem. How is it possible to use BT for presence detection when you donā€™t know if itā€™s a BT keyboard or my phone? And then even if you decipher that right now, in 5 minutes the ID will have changed.

Iā€™ll check out that github. Thanks.

Can I stop new devices from being tracked, after the configuration changed in 0.88?