Nmap device scanner unstable device state

I’ve done my device tracking in HA using the Nmap device scanner on my Wi-Fi . But it gives me a very unstable device state.
Even though the Wi-Fi is working fine for the devices it is flapping all over the place. See attached screenshots.
Any ideas on how to get rid of this?


I too have found nmap to be unstable recently. I think perhaps after installing HA 113.

I only use router tracking to know when one has arrived home.
Then I use the GPS and zone to know if that person is stil home.

Dont know. In the past I’ve been using the arp tracker which was even worse. So I recently changed to the ping tracker using Nmap. Hoping this will fix it.

Answering my own question :slight_smile:
I’ve been trying to debug this issue using tcpdump while at the same time keeping an eye at the device state.
I found out that this note in the Nmap tracker documentation is the case here:

Please keep in mind that modern smart phones will usually turn off WiFi when they are idle. Simple trackers like this may not be reliable on their own.

When my phone’s (Android, Samsung S9+) screen switches off it’ll stop responding to arp requests after a few minutes and only wakes up for checking for new email/whatsapp/whatever. This is done for battery conservation.
I think this behavior is the best we can make of this nmap device tracker. Which will be the case for every type of active network scanner.
A (primitive) solution could be lowering the timeout for the device state changes to not_home. But it would still not be ideal.

I guess the next best solution will be one of these:

  • use a tracker application on my phone
  • use a tracker that logs into my access point to see what devices are associated currently

If you install the companion app then it will show you the wifi you are connected to.
In my case it shows it without any gaps

I understand, but I also want to track other devices. Let’s call them non-managed devices, but also non Android or iOS devices.