Owntracks and Nmap = arrgghh

Configuration
21

Hi

I guess I have the same issues:

I am using nmap and owntracks. I get all the devices which are connected to my home network via nmap but as soon as I leave the home wifi I am shown away on the HA UI.

I would expect owntracks to send my gps location to HA as its connected to my mqtt but it doesnt.

What do you think might me the problem?

Thanks for your help.

22

I’ve just ditched owntracks and gone for GPSlogger with nmap instead. Appears to work well. I had a wanted to the shops about 800m away and it worked without any fuss.

23

That’s nice to hear.

Do you mind sharing your setup please on HA and on your phone?

Thanks.

24

sure, I just setup the GPSlogger using this guide

the URL on my phone using the guide is
http://MYDNS:8123/api/gpslogger?latitude=%LAT&longitude=%LON&device=%SER&accuracy=�C&battery=�TT&speed=%SPD&direction=%DIR&altitude=%ALT&provider=%PROV&activity=�T&api_password=mypassword

and in the configuration.yaml
device_tracker:

  • platform: gpslogger

  • platform: nmap_tracker
    home_interval: 10
    hosts:

    • xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
    • xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

both IPs are static in my router and only tracking 2 devices, mine and my wifes so why scan every device…

and in my devices (I know the guys above said don’t do it this way, but it works now for me, fingers crossed!!) I merged the 4 devices that appear, 2 for me (1 gpslogger, 1 nmap), same for my wife… so my known_devices.yaml is

obviously I have replaced the device names that appear when connecting via GPS logger and for this example replaced with 1’s and 2;s

111111111:
hide_if_away: false
mac: xxxxxxxxxx
name: Mark
picture:
track: true
vendor:

222222222:
hide_if_away: false
mac: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
name: Helen
picture:
track: true
vendor:

25

Thanks Mark.

Quick question : is that a URL on how to set it up on your phone? As it does not seem to open?

26

Apologies just saw the setup for GPS logger and know what you mean.

Does GPS logger work with iPhones as well?

27

not a clue, sorry… Android fan boy here :slight_smile:

28

also are you saying you got your phones ip and your wife’s ip static?

29

Right so I tried GPS Logger with the instructions you gave me and nmap. It does seem to work but it doesnt show the location of my android i.e. says I am home but no gps info nor any battery info.

Do you know what might be the problem?

30

Yeah i gave them both static lan ip addresses so nmap only scans 2 addresses.

Mine shows battery level but not long/lat which doesnt bother me as it just works… shame my crapy moto g keeps dropping signal and wifil saying i am away… time for a new phone!!!

31

OK I went for a walk and the phone lost my nmap network (obviously) and then my gps kicked in and lang/lat appeared etc, so if you have nmap and are at home, they won’t appear… fairly obvious really…

32

A bit late to help you, but it does mention it on the Zone page of the documentation:

Devices that are in the zone ‘Home’ will not appear on the map in the Home Assistant UI.

I spent an hour or few today trying to work out why the map was apparently pointless, until I “stumbled” across that.

1 Like
33

Thank you to both of you!

34

Another thing which might help is that if you have an RPi 3, or a Bluetooth 4.0 adaptor attached to an earlier RPi, you might find this gist helpful: https://gist.github.com/JonTheNiceGuy/294c5eadb3832c7bc6f90f472ca28242

It turns your RPi 3 into an iBeacon (it doesn’t create the Waypoints File that the OwnTracks people suggest yet, but it can create the QRCode for the iPhone OwnTracks app to import).

35

I followed @JonTheNiceGuy’s steps and use owntracks with an iBeacon on a RPi3 and it work perfectly. Thanks for sharing.

1 Like
36

I know this is ages ago but if someone is still having issues here, Im doing the below.

What I have done and has been working great using NMAP and Owntracks is to add the mac address of the phone to the owntracks device in known_devices.yaml

I dont seem to get any false positives.

owntracks_phone:
  hide_if_away: false
  icon:
  mac: 10:F1:A2:86:94:1F
  name: me
  picture: /local/me.jpg
  track: true
  vendor:

I then commented out the NMAP one

#10f1f2859410:
#  hide_if_away: false
#  icon:
#  mac: 10:F1:A2:86:94:1F
#  name: my_phone
#  picture: /local/me.jpg
#  track: true
#  vendor: unknown

I dont group anything together.

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