WTH - Why do we have multiple devices for people?

The UI allows us to add multiple devices to our Person. Not knowing the ins and out, I had setup my phone entity (from the HA Android app), as well as the network entity from the Unify integration. Either should be able to tell if I am home or not, but the phone app obviously does a better job since it has the ability to provide GPS coordinates (if enabled) to show where I am when not home.

However regardless of which order I put the devices in the list, HA always uses the network tracker as primary. Instead of the phone app entity which provides more detailed info. I found out (eventually) that by removing all my other devices and just having the phone app there, my person.name entity actually inherited GPS attributes and allowed me to do more with Zones.

So why do you allow multiple devices attached to a person? Because that definitely sets beginners (as it did me) up for failure.
And if there is a reason, how can we “prefer” a certain device as the main one? Since it currently seems to pick my network one with just a home/away status, and my person.name entity then lacks GPS coordinates.

Because not everyone uses their devices the same way you do… Some don’t carry a phone with them at all times, some carry different phones on different days, others disable GPS…

The “ins-and-outs” are detailed in the Person docs including the following:

Hint : When you use multiple device trackers together, especially stationary and GPS trackers, it’s advisable to set consider_home for stationary trackers as low as possible see Device Tracker

That makes a lot of sense. Not helpful in my case as I’m looking to have the GPS coordinates populated in the person.name entity at all times. But since I have the phone app tracker, the value of having the network tracker is diminished, so no need to add both.

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