#"At home" detection with the companion app isn't working

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

hushed venture
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Hi! I've just installed Home Assistant, and I'm obviously still fairly new, so I don't really know how to troubleshoot this:
I've installed the Android app on both my and my wife's phone, set up both of us as people within the system. We both show up as "at home" on the dashboard. The only problem is, this status never changes, even when we're halfway across town. What am I missing?

twin tartan
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#android-archived Would be best for this question. Make sure you've disabled the power management features and that background access is enabled

hushed venture
# twin tartan Also, https://companion.home-assistant.io/docs/troubleshooting/faqs/#device-trac...

Cool, thank you. I'm afraid I can't really see a way to move the thread to another channel.
Thanks for the faq, it really helped to exclude a lot of stuff like background data, battery optimisation and app permissions. However, I think I've identified the culprit: Every update after I've left home is marked as "send failed" - I need to set up some kind of remote access for the app from outside my network for this to work, don't I?

twin tartan
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Ahh, yeah, that'll do it, if you can't connect to your HA remotely, then you won't get any updates

vivid forum
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(though I appreciate that most people don't even know the docs exist...)

hushed venture
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Thanks! Though to be honest, I did try to figure it out with the documentation, it just wasn't obvious to me that remote access was a requirement for HA to know whether I'm home or not.
I guess I'll try to figure out how to set it up by having HA check whether my phone is logged into my wifi, since I don't really want or need remote access at this time.
Again, thanks for you help!

vivid forum
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Yeah, the problem is that the app can't report once it's away from home without remote access

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So, it'll never go "away"

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For "passive" home/away Bluetooth is better than WiFi, simply because many phones turn WiFi "off" (sort of) when in deep sleep

hushed venture
vivid forum
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Guess which is WiFi

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hushed venture
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Is it the top one?

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So your phone is never out of range of your HA's Bluetooth adapter while you're at home?
I know when I leave the room where my bluetooth speaker is set up it often already loses connection...

light cloudBOT
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As an alternative to HA built-in bluetooth tracking, the monitor script uses separate devices, usually Pi Zeroes, to track bluetooth devices.
It uses MQTT topics to relay device status messages to HA. See this forum thread for more.

There is also an add-on available for it.

vivid forum
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That's what I use, along with some door sensors and automation magic

hushed venture
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OK, I'll dive into that... another time. I can already see this isn't going to be a quick fix.

vivid forum
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Just Bluetooth is a win, but you may find your router's integration is good enough - some routers know when a phone is in sleep vs away