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.
1 Like
I almost consider that a badge of honor… 
interestingly I’ve never been so thin skinned that I’ve had to put someone on ignore. But that’s just me.
I really am done now. I promise. 
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.
OK, I lied…
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. 
2 Likes
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. 
1 Like
Yep, I lied to. Didn’t put you on ignore.
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)
This calls for an immediate change imho.
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.
You sure about that? Please reread. People want a confirmation, which is a pop up.
I don’t care much what other people call it, but simply another step in the configuration proces of the app is not the same as a pop-up. I think you are missing the point. People are asking not to do stuff automatically as its unexpected and unwanted behaviour. The app should not even touch important settings of the product it companions, especially not without explicit confirmation.
This is a step:
This is a popup:
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.
I’m not sure anybody has done so. It’s stupid, it’s unexpected and unwanted, but I don’t think this is your fault 
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.
As you have said many, many, many times, but I think you are very wrong. I have reviewed UX-design many years as a product owner, but I have not seen a “feature” like this in any product yet. It’s much to invasive, unexpected in many use cases and completely without any warning or documentation.
Any work-around you have mentioned it not without any important disadvantages in many use-cases and a work-around is always wrong if the problem can be simply corrected another way.
I won’t be filing a feature request myself as I have experienced such feature request are bound to be subject to similar time consuming and frustrating discussions, so I leave that to other people and will just second their request
If the product (HA) keept frustrating me in such ways, I usually just walk away and try something else. The time that I install and configure Home Assistant as a hobby is long gone. I now just want it to work stably and reliably otherwise I loose the support of my family members Things like this do not help much.
And that step asks about location tracking. 
You say yes, it tracks your location. Why would you want to track the location of a device that never leaves your house. Simply say “no”. Secondly, thats exactly what I was proposing. A setting, not a confirmation. You turn on location tracking, it auto tracks your persons location. You go into settings and turn off an advanced feature that 90% of users won’t even encounter.
Right, but you don’t know the history of this feature. Originally, users had to do all this manually and there was a large push to make it automatic. So, it’s basically the functionality you want vs functionality many others want. Right now you can set it up to do both, but it’s not a simple setting. So, is this feature really important? There are work arounds with no drawbacks other than more configuring. Sorry that it’s not a simple toggle. If you want this exact functionality right this moment, create your persons and users separately. Nothing automatic will happen, and contrary to what squirel says, you can still have dashboards based on users but you’ll have to update the yaml on those dashboards.
First of all it would only ask me the first time. Secondly: It only asks me to track my location, it does not ask to add the device tracking to my person within Home Assistant (so change important Home Assistant settings without explicit permission) and potentially break all my location based automations.
I have asked for this to be corrected, but I am quit sure I know what is going to happen next
Please upvote this everybody 
Because it’s not an issue. It’s a #feature-requests . 
This is just an invitation for an argument. If you can’t follow basic rules, you’re going to be met with people brushing you off.
Thats what you say. I say that a companion app should not be able to change Home Assistant settings and break Home Assistant automations without explicit permission of the user.
That is a permissions issue within Home Assistant in my book. Can any companion app, developed by any dev do this?
Prepare to be disappointed because this is confirmed “by-design”, I.e. purposeful functionality, which means it’s not a bug.
This may seem like semantics, but it’s the truth. Don’t shoot the messenger.
Well, then they are welcome to change it to a feature request. If this is the way HA will handle changing important settings from a companion app without explicit permission of the user, then I need to reconsider my options, as HA will not be for me then.
Ah yes, threats will get you what you want.
This is not even close to a threat, just a simple fact. I am not in the business of spending hours to search for unexpected “stuff” happening from one version to the other. Especially if it happens without explicit permission and even documentation.
I am just stating that if things like this happen too often I would have to consider my options as my family just do not accept stuff breaking all the time. Its a home automation system, not some hobby project anymore. Home Assistant is in the business of automating the boring stuff, not breaking things unexpectedly and undocumented is it?
I do expect and accept this is a commercially funded open source project and stuff wil change and even sometimes break, but this is undocumented, unexpected and simply not-done. The change is extremely invasive and should always minimally require explicit permission.
This functionality has been here for 2 years, it’s not really sudden or unexpected. I’m just offering advice on issues and feature requests based on my past experience. You do you. I won’t interfere with the issue. I just voted for @squirtbrnr ’s feature request, disabled the feature on my system, and now I’m moving on.