Device Tracking export for Home Assistant without Third-Party integrations

[thijsmie]

Just for future reference for anyone trying to achieve this with minimal fuss. The method in the documentation does not work anymore: HACS rejects the integration because it does not meet the requirements anymore. Anyway, you probably don't need it anyway. If you want to track your device and you already have a device tracker and MQTT set up you can simply add an automation:

alias: Export Phone location
description: "Export location of a tracker in owntracks format to mqtt"
triggers:
  - trigger: state
    entity_id:
      - device_tracker.___phone_entity_id___
conditions: []
actions:
  - action: mqtt.publish
    metadata: {}
    data:
      qos: "1"
      topic: owntracks/___username___/___device_name___
      payload: |-
        {
          "_type": "location",
          "lat": {{ state_attr('device_tracker.___phone_entity_id___', 'latitude') }},
          "lon": {{ state_attr('device_tracker.___phone_entity_id___', 'longitude') }},
          "tst": {{ as_timestamp(now()) | int }},
          "acc": {{ state_attr('device_tracker.___phone_entity_id___', 'gps_accuracy') | default(100) }},
          "vac": {{ state_attr('device_tracker.___phone_entity_id___', 'vertical_accuracy') | default(100) }},
          "vel": {{ state_attr('device_tracker.___phone_entity_id___', 'speed') * 3.6 | default(0) | round  }},
          "alt": {{ state_attr('device_tracker.___phone_entity_id___', 'altitude') | default(0) }},
          "batt": {{ states('sensor.___phone_entity_id___battery_level') | default(100) }}
        }
      retain: false
mode: single

This writes the location/battery tracking info in owntracks format to mqtt. You can then simply connect reitti with the owntracks mqtt integration.

[SteveDockar]

I have Node-Red collect device-tracker updates from Hass to do some other post processing with, so added a second push to MQTT for Reitti in that flow, and location data is flowing into Reitti now, but, if I didn't already use that, I would be adopting your suggestions @thijsmie, thank you!

I appreciate the MQTT integration is quite new and has been ideal for me. I might have missed it, but I looked for a "central" MQTT config where I could supply my broker details once and give a topic template like the help-text in the user Integration field. My hope was I could add the broker to my compose file's environment and give a path like owntracks/{userId}/{deviceId} and that would do for all users unless they had a local override. Unless I missed it and it already exists, maybe something for a future version. 🙂

[dgraf-gh]

Thank you for your participation and the feedback.

I appreciate the MQTT integration is quite new and has been ideal for me. I might have missed it, but I looked for a "central" MQTT config where I could supply my broker details once and give a topic template like the help-text in the user Integration field. My hope was I could add the broker to my compose file's environment and give a path like owntracks/{userId}/{deviceId} and that would do for all users unless they had a local override. Unless I missed it and it already exists, maybe something for a future version. 🙂

You are not the first one to mention this. How many users do you have in your instance? I am still a little bit baffled because in my world there would be 3 users when everyone participated. Therefore, I never considered some form of templating. I am still not quite sure how this can be implemented since at least the topic, i.e., user and device ID, have to be entered.

There is a discussion to allow admin users to impersonate other accounts and configure the details for them. Would this help?

[SteveDockar]

Hi Daniel, I self-host apps for our family of five. I am also tech-support for everyone else, so I had five windows open to set this up, created five users/passwords, created each account and then had to log in to each to set essentially the same MQTT integration details (and user sharing). I trust my family, but would not trust them to correctly setup their own MQTT integrations (they would have said "MQ-what?" 😁 ) and I would not want to put the MQTT broker's reitti-user password/details into chat even if I did. 🤔

I appreciate my central NodeRed environment is a level of additional complexity that you should not assume everyone has or needs, but I would guess that if users have multiple family members or devices using MQTT device tracking in something like OwnTracks or Home Assistant, they will have a common topic hierarchy for them, with /something/{{userId}}/{{deviceId}} or similar.

Being able to set that for users from an admin account as you suggest would certainly help yes, but if each user's topic is that common format, registering the parent/{{userId}}/{{deviceId}} shared integration could create a parent/+/+ subscription to the broker.

If the Reitti logic is currently:

1. Receive message on user Integration MQTT topic subscription - Process update

That could become

1. Receive message on user Integration MQTT topic subscription - Process update
2. Receive message on shared MQTT topic
3. If {{userId}} match with existing Reitti user,
   3a. If user has a new ignoreSharedMqtt setting enabled, or their own MQTT integration config set, discard update
   3b. Else register update
4. Else: discard update

My family are used to me saying "hey we have this cool new thing that lets you do..." but if the cool new thing comes with any friction they won't bother. We have a Google Apps/Workspace domain that I've had forever and my youngest son's Timeline was wiped when Google decided that under-18 year-old users shouldn't be tracked (even in our family/org tenancy) so your hard work with Reitti is very much appreciated. I have OIDC access from our Authentik server working so I don't have to bother the family with new passwords to remember or store so actually, everything is working well now, but the single, central MQTT config would have been much easier. 👍