Device tracking for home automation (e.g home assistant), running as an external service, and reporting status to a MQTT broker.
Tracking is configured per device, using a set of pre-defined modules. As of now, only the deepsleep module is implemented.
(Image source: https://pawpatrol.fandom.com/wiki/Tracker)
This module works by sending a UDP packet on port 5353 (used by multicast DNS) with whatever payload to a device, and then checking the host machines ARP table to see if it contains an entry for the device we are tracking.
This module enables us to track newer iPhones, which are hard to track, since they disconnect from WiFi when the screen is locked. This method probably works for other devices as well.
This module basically uses the same detection strategy as implemented by Magnus Nyström (mudape) in iphonedetect. I had to do my own implementation, since I wanted to track devices on an other subnet than the Home Assistant server, which would not work with iphonedetect, since the server was not getting ARP table entries for the devices.
Tracker can be installed in the following way.
Start by installing the Tracker Python module:
root@server:~/tracker# pip3 install -r requirements.txt
root@server:~/tracker# python3 setup.py installThen add a configuration file for Tracker. The simplest way to do this is to copy the example configuration file from the repository and edit it to fit your needs:
root@server:~/tracker# mkdir /etc/tracker
root@server:~/tracker# cp example.yaml /etc/tracker/tracker.yamlAnd then finally, install the Tracker systemd service:
root@server:~/tracker# cp tracker.service /etc/systemd/system
root@server:~/tracker# systemctl daemon-reload
root@server:~/tracker# systemctl enable tracker.service
root@server:~/tracker# systemctl start tracker.serviceAbove, we also tell systemd to start Tracker on boot.
In this example, we use the Mosquitto MQTT broker from the Home Assistant add-on store. Feel free to use any MQTT broker you like.
Start by installing the Mosquitto broker from the add-on store and add a local user to the configuration file (Supervisor → Mosquitto broker → Configuration), e.g:
logins:
- username: tracker
password: some-awesome-random-generated-passwordThe broker needs to be restarted before we are able to log in with the new user.
To actually track the device, we have to add some configuration to /config/configuration.yaml (or maybe in another location if HASSOS is not used). This can be done using SSH or using the File Editor add-on.
The following configuration tracks the device my_iphone using the tracker/location/my_iphone MQTT topic:
device_tracker:
- platform: mqtt
devices:
my_iphone: tracker/location/my_iphoneHome Assistant should be restarted after modifying configuration.yaml.
This means that every time Tracker publishes something on that MQTT topic, it is picked up by Home Assistant.
The following should be added to the configuration file of Tracker (default path: /etc/tracker.yaml) to track the device configured in the previous step:
device_track:
- my_iphone:
module: deepsleep
ip: 1.2.3.4 # add the IP address of your device hereNow start Tracker to start tracking your device.