So my Pixel 3XL and my kid’s iPhones keep track if we’re at home or not but my wife’s Samsung A8, although has the same installation as mine (reported as 1.3.1 (57) in the apps), always says “Home”. Is there anything on a Samsung phone I must do (location is enabled) to make it detect presence?
Thanks.
Edit: What I did so far: The entity '‘device_tracker.sm_a530w" has been created when I installed the app. When it didn’t work, I did remove it, rebooted the HA, cleared the apps’ data, relaunched it, entered Home Assistant CLOUD link (just like I did with mine), logged in with her account, allowed location and reselected the newly created device_tracker entity for her ‘person’ entity. Still doesn’t work.
I’m working on figuring this out on my Samsung now as well. Today I disabled the “optimize battery usage” for the home assistant app and the location services and it seems to work so far.
Search in your settings for “optimize battery usage” and see if it works for you.
Did that, also left the application running just in case. She went out with my son, I see his phone as ‘Away’ but hers still says ‘Home’
Update: She left at around 9:45am. It now shows as ‘Away’ and looking at her presence history it seems to coincide with the time she called me (10:04am). Looks like the application only work when the phone is unlocked?
Personally I found the best device and location tracker is to use Google maps, especially on an inherent Android device. I created a new Google account shared my devices location with that account. I then use the Google maps integration with home assistant and grabbing cookie method in order to link this new Google account with home assistant. This enables me to not give my real Google account credentials to HA.
Anyhow, I’ve tried owntracks and Life360 and this seems to be the best way that works for me. I also have my wife share her location with the same new account to track us both.
Might be an option if I can’t get the app to work reliably on her cell. A bit more problematic to set up than just running the Home Assistant Companion app but I now have an option
I have a similar problem except both my wife and I use Pixel 3s. It seems like if you don’t open the app every so often, something times out and the device_tracker updates stop.
It’s not a problem for me because I use the app all the time, whereas she only looks at it sparingly.
I turned off battery optimization and that helped, but after a few days her device stopped reporting again.
I had this EXACT same issue (related to using presence detection and SmartThings app, but same basic story) - I used the app all the time, and she hardly ever.
Anyhow, not to kick a dead horse - but the ‘ghost’ Google account (more details a couple posts up) and using inherent Google Maps Location Sharing has worked great for me (I use a Pixel 3 and my wife has a Pixel XL). Also doesn’t seem to be a huge battery drain and it updates in a timely manner. Just my $.02 on what works for us.
I live abroad in a country that doesn’t support Google Maps very well. I frequently get the “This Device is not sending Location Updates” error that literally hundreds if not thousands of people have been complaining about for quite a long time. At best, my wife and my Google Maps location status is updated every 30-45 minutes. It’s not ideal.
So far the new Android app has worked better; it’s just a matter of getting the app to properly work in the background over a long period of time.
