What's the most accurate android phone tracker

Configuration
1

Hi all,

I’ve looked around for a phone tracker and found loads out there, so my question is, what’s the best one (most accurate and doesn’t drain phone battery to much) and where can I find installation instructions for someone who has little idea of what they are doing like me?

Any help?

2

I’m using Life360 together with custom component places what is a perfect tracker imo. Doesn’t drain battery much, and is active on the background.

1 Like
3

I have tried Owntracks, GPS Logger, Ariela, Custom Tasker setup, Life360, Google Maps Location Sharing, and who knows what else.

I have found the most reliable and accurate for me has been GPS Logger. I also use Google Location Sharing as a second check.

2 Likes
4

trying to set this up and i’m hitting a problem,

i’ve set up the configuration.yaml with the following

# Life360 setup 
life360:
  accounts:
    - username: !secret life360-robin-un
    - password: !secret life360-robin-pw
  driving_speed: 12
  interval_seconds: 10
  max_gps_accuracy: 200
  max_update_wait:
    minutes: 45
  show_as_state:
    - driving
    - moving
  warning_threshold: 2
  error_threshold: 3

my secrets.yaml is set up as such

# Life360
life360-robin-un: my-life360-email-address
life360-robin-pw: my-life360-password

and when i check my config before doing a restart i get the following error

Invalid config for [life360]: required key not provided @ data[‘life360’][‘accounts’][0][‘password’]. Got None. (See /config/configuration.yaml, line 112). Please check the docs at Removed integration - Home Assistant

what have i done wrong?

5

I’ll second GPS Logger. I have it set at five minute updates and it doesn’t register at even 1% battery drain over the day.

1 Like
6

Take the hyphen off the front of the password line

1 Like
7

i see that for GPS logger i need to set up SSL, i got lost doing that before and so gave up
couldn’t understand it at all :frowning: instead i went for the cloud route is it still advised to use SSL anyway?

8

I also recommend Life360 - works very well!

Try changing “- password:” to just “password:” (no hyphen)

9

thank you, that has that part up and running… now to get it so I can see a location somewhere,

should it show on the MAPS tab?

10

Only after you have left your Home Zone

1 Like
11

Yes, I believe it should show on “Map” (mine does) BUT! assuming you have the correct Latitude and Longitude set for you home in configuration.yaml, you will only see a HOME icon. Your position on the map will be shown if you leave home.

1 Like
12

If you’re using cloud: you can use that for any webhook, including GPS Logger.

13

I’ve had equally good results with Owntracks and GPS Logger.

14

Being an Android user I’ve had success w/ Google Maps integration (though the handful of different ways to grab cookies changing / updating over the past month or so has been a bit of a challenge). New method is working and has been for a few weeks.

Tried OwnTracks when I had GMaps cookie issues and didn’t like it at all.

Haven’t tried GPS Logger, but might as a back-up based on what’s been posted above.

15

And you don’t know if it’s broken until you restart your HA. Kind of a nuisance really.

Getting the cookie correctly has been hit or miss, so I combine google with GPS Logger.

I found Owntracks to be too much of a battery hog, and the app has been buggy on Android forever. The developer didn’t like me reporting as such either. I try it every so often, and always come back to GPS Logger.

Do note, that there is a current bug (at least in 0.99.x) with Owntracks integration in HA, and at midnight every night, you will go from home > not home > home again. That’s fun to wake up to your house doing automations you don’t expect.

16

That, and letting batteries in the phone die, is why I no longer blindly trust device trackers. I use them in an automation, along with the state of a door sensor, to set the state of an input boolean instead. If the front door hasn’t opened in the last 5 minutes then the boolean won’t be turned off as I assume it’s a false away (or somebody is sneaking out a window).

1 Like
17

i managed to get life360 installed on both my wifes phone and mine, all set up in HA and showing on maps (when away from home) BUT… that was about 3 hours ago, about 2 hours ago my wife and I took my dog for a walk, it was on this walk that I found out that the trackers were working… however… according to the device_tracker I am currently still in the park, dripping with water and freezing cold (it’s raining hard and very windy) but I’ve been home for well over an hour. so either I have done something wrong somewhere, or this is just not for me…

i’m going to try and get GPS logger to work also and see what is more accurate/less problematic for me.

18

Would be interested in how you combine Google/ GPS Logger.

With so many automations based on home/away status - critical this is as accurate as possible. And you’re spot on w/ restarts, always a cross your fingers and toes it still works after…

19

having problems getting GPSLogger to work ( I think)

i’ve installed the android app, followed the instructions on the web page and for the URL i copied what HA gave me when i wend to configure it into an email and pasted it from there to the app (way to many characters to type in one by one and to big a change of mixing up 0, o and O not to mention 1, i, I, l and L ) , so i know the URL is correct, GPS logger itself appears to be running just fine no problems (that i know of)

however appart from configuring it from the front end, I can find no other method of setting it up and I have nothing in my states page, I’ve restarted HA about 6 times but still nothing…

any ideas?

20

Did you check the log in the GPS Logger app to see if it’s reporting to Home Assistant?