You confirmed everything I said. I have to create new users which creates new a user_id which forces me to edit my dashboards from the frontend and YAML. And for some, that’s not really user friendly unless you love to muck around a bit in YAML, and backend stuff. For me personally, I’ve shifted from tinkering to functionality and usability. And a question on registering a new mobile app is more usable than jumping through hoops just to disassociate a device and person.
Fair enough. I don’t need support on this because I have my own work around which keeps things more manageable and cleaner from a usability, maintenance, and UI standpoint (1 person with associated user login per individual). I just have to be vigilant in checking to make sure no device trackers have added themselves to a person without prompting.
And you’re proposing that we add a confirmation box for this. So lets paint that picture real quick to show you why this is a bad idea.
Current behavior: When you log into the mobile app, it adds the device tracker to your person if it’s not there. Logins occur after the app goes to sleep and is woken back up. Logins occur when you refresh the page.
You’re proposed behavior: When you log in, a confirmation appears to add this device to the person.
So to be clear, every refresh, every awake from sleep, every time you close the app and open it back up, you’ll get this prompt.
And before you say “well it should be stored and only displayed once”, the frontend only holds cache. If you clear the cache, the message will appear again. So even at the best case scenario, you’ll still get this message more than you want it.
So, are you sure you just want a simple confirmation box? I’d wager that the answer is no. Because no one likes constant pop ups.
@petro What is the right way to actually rename the owner anyway? Do we just create a new admin user, edit the .storage/auth somehow and restart ha? Then need to create a new user with hte same name as the original owner…
What I am proposing and will eventually create a feature request for is to edit the behavior of the onboarding of a new mobile app integration. currently if a person with associated user logs into the app and that app has never been connected to that user or HA instance before (therefore no token for that user_id or device exists), it assigns the device tracker to that person without prompting or even so much as a notice of “hey we did this thing”. So on the edit person screen you see all device trackers associated with said person. The JSON of the person file in the .storage folder shows this:
what would be nice is on initial onboarding which configures the mobile app integration, it asks “Should this device be used for Person X tracking?”. A check box, a toggle, or a “yes” or “no” and it places the device tracker entity under either an include or exclude heading under the device trackers for the person. Kind of how the include or exclude of the recorder is formatted. then every time the frontend of the app refreshes or this “login” occurs, the backend can check if the device tracker exists under the person (regardless if it is included or excluded) and if it does, don’t change anything because it’s already been decided. If this isn’t the right place, then maybe a new heading in the mobile_app file under the .storage folder.
I’m sure this was lost in the fray above but the very easiest way to solve the problem is to just configure the person via yaml. I’ve never seen it happen to me and it’s likely because I configure the persons via yaml.
I know but that’s not what you said. You said everyone. So “everyone” was being told that “everyone” just likes to argue.
Where did I take offense anywhere except to point out that you shouldn’t make a blanket statement toward all users when you said everyone just wanted to argue?
I didn’t even take offense then because I know that unless I agree with you and don’t try to explain my position then you start getting testy and saying that kind of thing. So I have come to expect it. You were the one who got obnoxious with us.
There was no “argument”. I was literally just stating the obvious - the behavior wasn’t obvious and it is undocumented and it is unexpected. In my book that doesn’t seem to be good design and I stated why with an example.
You just seem incapable of acknowledging that HA can make mistakes and not everything is perfect. As it is in this case. I’m obviously not the only one that feels this way from the way this has taken off.
And if you remember way up there I offered to bow out but you drug me back in again.
as to the issue at hand do you really think that needing to do all of that stuff you said to do to avoid the situation would be easy to figure out for the “target audience”?
I just see the inexperienced user trying to figure out why their automations don’t work then finding out it’s because the person entity isn’t acting as expected and having no way of even knowing how to troubleshoot it or what to do to fix it.
A notification pop-up and documentation would go at least a little ways in letting users know what to expect.
I read most of the post above explaining at length how you we prevent HA from automatically linking a device location to a person. It is nice that there are ways, but please let me explain why I think all of them are workarounds and why I think the current the design is flawed:
It is nice to trace locations of devices and I do not want to turn that off to fix person locations.
It is nice to trace locations of persons even more. Persons use many devices, but usually only one (maybe two) travel with the person all time time. iPads for example rarely qualify as good person trackers.
There’s a dialog to tell HA which trackers should be used to establish the location of a person. HA should not overrule what I entered there without notice.
Automatic linking a device to a person also happens to me when the device is already known, and was already before manually removed from the person dialog. This keeps me doing it over and over.
I should not be required to remember to use different user names on each device I own to prevent HA from identifying me as a certain person. I don’t want multiple logins for the same person.
I also happen to think it would be useful anyway to ask: hey, it looks like you’re logging in to a new device, do you want me to start using it for location tracking? It is what other apps like Tado do. HA trying to be smart and failing some of the time isn’t helping anyone, judging from the length of this discussion.
If a question to lautomatically link a device is hard to implement, would it be an idea toadd a list of device trackers to ignore/exclude from automatic linking.
Actually I don’t consider myself inexperienced but this did happen to me. So it is relevant. Yes I was able to deduce why after a bit but it went a few weeks with 'hmm i wonder why that didn’t work right. I’ll look at some point…" On the flip side, they may not know how to re-add their trackers to the person if needed later if it wasn’t automatic.
Last point. The work around is good but I don’t think it’s ‘obvious’ as I wouldn’t have really known how without the thread. I do understand person/user is different. But I wouldn’t have realized to separate them by the toggle (especially for owner).
Tbh though, its only been an issue once when I was testing something on a 2nd phone.
Wear it like a badge. I’m one of many devs/mods who ignore you. It’s a great honor. Don’t look inward at your negativity at all. It’s us that are the problem.
I’m not saying that I don’t ardently present my points. That is exactly the point of discussion.
But I also am not going to just look at everything that the devs do thru rose colored glasses that blind me to the very few issues that need addressing. It’s not negativity. It’s reality. If there is a potential problem it’s not negativity to point it out. It’s trying to call attention to it to try to find a solution. Sorry if there are some devs/mods who can’t handle that.
And if HA needs defended I’m as ardent in that response as well. You know that too.
I’ll say it again as I have before…I’m NEVER the one who gets testy/crappy/name call-y/personal attack-y first. And most of the time second. IU try really hard to keep it to just the facts as I see them. I only got indignant here after YOU started the same thing again. Don’t call me out in public and I won’t do what I’m doing now again. As a mod you definitely never model the behavior you say that you want to see in others.
And I’m not the only one you’ve done this to either. Every time someone takes a stand against something that HA devs/mods do you treat those others exactly the same way. It’s almost as if any dissent at all is completely shut down. Hmm…strange.
The ironic thing is that many of my positions are pretty popular with users. I get LOTS of likes. Because I’m not afraid to speak my mind and go to the mat if necessary.
And the other ironic thing is that several of the positions that I’ve advocated for have eventually gotten incorporated. So I was actually right to point out the problems. Not that I ever get credit for it, only called names.
But whatever, I’ve tried to stay out of the fray more recently and never ever would have thought this topic would have ended up so fraught.
Hi, I have been trying to sift through this topic looking for an answer to the same question. What I read is a lot of people that do not expect HA to behave the way it does and a moderator who keeps repeating endlessly everybody is wrong and they should RTFM.
my few cents…
If I install the Companion app on my iPhone I more or less “expect” the app to do Person tracking, because I more or less install it for mostly that reason. But If I install the app on an iPad, Macbook or iMac or any other device that is likely not to be on my person at all times, I do NOT expect that behaviour at all. I think this should be totally optional, preferably an opt-in on install “Would you like to enable person tracking for this device?” just like any other step during the installation proces. Or maybe even better " If you would like to do Person tracking in Home Assiatant, do not forget to add this device to your person settings" (as the Companion app should no even be allowed to change important HA settings like tracking settings which are bound to be heavily used in automations!)
Doing this automagically during setup or login of the app is unwanted and unexpected behaviour and should be treated as a bug in my opinion and I suspect many other peoples opinion. Nobody expects the companion app to change important HA settings.
I have just freshly installed the Companion app on my ipad and it just asks me to point to the HA server and when I do that nothing is telling me device tracking will be activated and a device tracker will be automagically added to “my person”. It’s just NOT expected behavior in any way and should always be optional, preferably during the setup proces, like I outlined above.
Every-time I have to login to the HA companion app on an iPad macbook or my mac mini, I have to manually remove the device trackers from “my person” in HA after noticing none of my tracking automations work anymore.
Disabling device tracking entirely in the iPad settings for this app is nothing more that a bad work-around as I want to know where my devices are, I just donn’t want them influencing “my person” tracking.
Please open up to what your users are telling you. It’s not that hard to keep everybody satisfied.
Where in my responses did I ask for opinions on improvements for this feature? I come in here to help people get past problems. If I happen to know how something works, I’ll gladly describe the feature in detail. I do the same thing on Reddit. The difference between here and Reddit is that I don’t get an uninvited gang up about how a feature works on Reddit.
Just take a look here, it’s 5 v 1 about something that I largely don’t care about. This happens on every thread I’m in here and I don’t invite it. I’ve asked you specifically to stop in the past, and you still don’t honor that request. So you will always get this reaction from me. You know how to stop it. Just honor the request I made 3 years ago.
This is a bold faced lie. I have screenshots of you badgering people about being right, using all caps, generally being an unpleasant community member. You may not realize it, but you’re involved in every argument on these forums, feature based or not. As a mod, we have to get dragging into every petty quarrel, so I have to be there and respond. You, on the other hand, do not. Yet you are. You and a few other users are always at the center, hearting eachother away like it’s a fight to bet on. I’m done with it.
Where did I say people are wrong? Where did I tel people to RTFM? Please point it out. You’re here to slam me because I’m a mod and you don’t like my opinion. Also, where in the mods job description does it say: “sounding board for issues with home assistant”?
I’m simply describing how to work around the issue, which bit me in the ass too. The difference here between me and you is that I didn’t come here to specifically rag on someone based on their opinion. I came here to solve the issue and I got attacked by 6 people. All because I have mod next to my name. How would you react? Would you be happy with every post resulting in a “home assistant sucks and so does your opinion”?
Yes I agree. However a pop up is not the way to handle it. Sorry that’s my opinion. A setting would be better. I’m guessing you missed me saying that before because it doesn’t fall into your narrative.
With a single device, it makes sense to automatically add the device tracker to a person. End. With multiple devices, it would be nice to avoid that feature. End. A pop up is not a good suggestion. End.
You simply come about very hostile in your responses and you keep repeating the same stuff. Relax and open up to what people are repeatedly saying.
Nobody is asking for a pop-up. It could be simply another step during the installation/configuration proces of the app. A pop-up it a totally different beast
Point is: It is not “normal” behaviour that a companion app automagically changes important settings in the product it companions, without any kind of warning.
It keeps on breaking our important automations and when so manny people are complaining about it, one could not respond more badly then “file a bug” or “ask for a feature that changes it”, " this is normal behaviour", “read the manual” etc. (or offer bad work-arounds)
You sure about that? Please reread. People want a confirmation, which is a pop up.
How would you react if every post you make about feature is met with “well this is stupid, it’s basically your fault and you should do what I want. I’m not going to think about others because my problem outweighs theirs”. Generally curious.
Again, I didn’t invite this conversation. The functionality makes sense to me for single devices. Sorry, but this is a fringe case that has ways to get around it.
Ok, and who’s going to do this? Me? Are you trying to force a volunteer to add something that you want? Why me?
The normal process is: make a feature request, wait til it gets implemented. That’s it. If you can’t develop, that’s the only route you have.
Sorry for that!
