Can the companion app be put on a phone to allow for presence detection WITHOUT also allowing Home assistant login in that app, where e.g. a child could potentially wreck havoc? The non-administrator limitation in HA isn’t exactly stellar. I can’t find any info on it.
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There are multiple apps for the phone that work with HA like OwnTracks for example.
The HA app wont do anything if not logged in. So if its just tracking use something that can talk to HA.
Or use the Wifi on a supported router.
Well I wished that I could set it up so the app would login and only display a selected, appropriate page of controls for the user, but I can’t limit that in HA afaik. Which is weird in itself.
Thanks for the tip with owntracks. Would love to have access to the other stuff too like battery level etc. that is offered by HA companion app.
You can limit which pages they can see. But they can do all kind of settings in the app and their own settings which is annoying yes.
I would love to see some kind of guest / child lvl that would only allow access to the Lovelace interface.
Definitely. I’ve tried locking down HA for an account but really, for a nosy child with patience, they’d be able to do ALOT of things I don’t care for. A shame the companion app cannot be used just as a sensor updater.
I know this is an old thread, but I’m in this boat and thought I’d chime in fashionably late. Has anyone tried installing the HA app, logging them in so that device tracker works (I use iCloud3, which relies on it) and then disabling access to the app via a parent control app (like the built in screen time, or something like “Our Pact”). Has anyone tried this? I’m thinking maybe the app can run in the background as needed, but the child wouldn’t be able to actually start the app to interact with it.
Not sure if this is a new setting but seems there is a way to do this.
I created an account for my wife (Android) and son (iPhone), and installed the app on their phones. I logged in and made sure location sensors were enabled.
Then I changed the people setting so they are not allowed to login. There is a message that says they won’t be able to login but can still be tracked. I couldn’t track my son but I think this is probably because he had no data allowance left.
I could track my wife but now this has stopped working without making any changes so I’m not sure what has gone wrong. I will recheck all the settings and update, but if anyone has got this to work please let us know.
I’m very interested in doing this as well. I have the HA app installed on my son’s phone, but I don’t want him to be able to do anything in HA. Just want it for tracking, sensors, etc. Curious if anyone has a solution for this.
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I couldn’t figure out a way to do this so I just use restriction cards now…
1+ for this feature request
I guess for iPhone users, if you have your kids on a family account, you could use the iCloud tracker.
Any update to this? Is it working?
The idea of not allowing login was a smart one, sadly it won’t work for my kid as she needs to access a panel with basic switches to turn things on/off. I just don’t want them to also be able to do other things that I currently cannot find a way of disabling.
Would be super cool if there was a flag, setting, or version of the companion app used only for sensors. I have a few of my own devices I would love to install it on as well that don’t need the full app, as well as just sensors/triggers based upon family members, especially now that Life360 is having issues, and could go away at any time.
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Has anyone figured this out yet? I keep reading/hearing how it’s possible to have the companion app to do location and sensor updates without giving that user access to HA. But you must login to the app in order to setup the sensors and configuration so you must create an active user for them. What am I missing?
I never did. I just locked down as much as I could, removed everything from the left menu panel and pray my daughter isn’t smart or interested enough to stark poking around.
You’re not missing anything except that you can’t use the companion without login I don’t know what gave the impression you can.
The root of the problem in this thread is HA does not currently support Role Based Access Control (RBAC) property therefore you can’t currently make a super limited account for use and they asked for a feature to do so. The suggestions are all how to use alternatives. But as of today in Jan 2025 you still can’t use companion without login
(and frankly I do not think it should be possible - instead they need to fix the authentication modeland implement proper RBAC so folks wouldn’t mind having the kid login…)
Agree. It should be a login, but it needs to be possible to lock down a user to essentially be able to do nothing.
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This page: Person - Home Assistant.
It states:
Under Allow login, select if they should be able to log in.
- If they cannot log in, they do not get a user account, and they cannot do much with Home Assistant.
- They cannot have their own dashboard, for example.
- But they can still be used for device tracking and show up on a map and be used in automations.
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That denotes the difference between a person object and a user account
A user account is attached to a person object
Person:
An HA construct that is nothing more than a collected state of trackers and some extra attributes like picture… I could and some people do make thier pet’s ‘person objects’ so they can see the tracker they attach to the collar on a map. But
Can login:
Gets a login account to HA.
Difference:
I can track the dog. The dog can not login to see his tracking status.