State of zone entity should be friendly name when Privacy == Zone Name Only

[tom-parkinson]

The problem

If "Zone Name Only" is set under the "Location Sent" setting of the Companion app, then the entity name of the zone gets shown on the person entity cards on the dashboard. This behaviour is inconsistent with the "Exact" location sent setting, which shows the friendly name of the zone.

In this example, kids have the “Location Sent” to “Exact” under Privacy in the app and for adults to “Zone Name Only”.
The dashboard with simple person entities shows correctly “Home” and “Away” for all. However, once in a pre-configured zone:

kids: it displays the zone’s friendly name, e.g. “School”
adults: it displays the zone’s entity, like “kids_school” instead of “School”.

There's a forum discussion thread with several users about this. It was also submitted as an issue on the frontend but no problems reported there.

What version of Home Assistant Core has the issue?

2023.12.1

What was the last working version of Home Assistant Core?

No response

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant OS

Integration causing the issue

Device tracker

Link to integration documentation on our website

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/device_tracker/

Diagnostics information

State and attributes of the privacy-enabled person as well as the zone when issue appears:

Example YAML snippet

No response

Anything in the logs that might be useful for us?

No response

Additional information

No response

[home-assistant]

Hey there @home-assistant/core, mind taking a look at this issue as it has been labeled with an integration (device_tracker) you are listed as a code owner for? Thanks!

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[vvac]

+1 to this request

[dakone22]

core/homeassistant/components/device_tracker/legacy.py

Lines 889 to 912 in 29cac5b

	async def async_update(self) -> None:
	"""Update state of entity.
	This method is a coroutine.
	"""
	if not self.last_seen:
	return
	if self.location_name:
	self._state = self.location_name
	elif self.gps is not None and self.source_type == SourceType.GPS:
	zone_state = zone.async_active_zone(
	self.hass, self.gps[0], self.gps[1], self.gps_accuracy
	)
	if zone_state is None:
	self._state = STATE_NOT_HOME
	elif zone_state.entity_id == zone.ENTITY_ID_HOME:
	self._state = STATE_HOME
	else:
	self._state = zone_state.name
	elif self.stale():
	self.mark_stale()
	else:
	self._state = STATE_HOME
	self.last_update_home = True

I had a quick look at the device update code, and if I understand the code here correctly, it shows that the friendly_name of the zone is obtained by accurately determining the zone based on gps.
But without gps, the location_name obtained from the device app is used instead of the zone name, I assume.
I guess it's enough to add an attempt to convert location_name to zone and get the friendly_name of the zone.

Only I am not sure how exactly to convert the zone id string into a zone object to get the friendly_name of the zone

I guess, something like this:

# ...
if self.location_name:
    zone_state = zone.get_zone_state(self.hass, self.location_name)
    self._state = self.location_name if zone_state is None else zone_state.name
# elif ...

assuming zone.get_zone_state should look something like this (based on zone.async_active_zone):

def get_zone_state(hass: HomeAssistant, zone_id: str) -> State | None:
    """ Find the active zone with given id. """

    zone = hass.states.get(zone_id)  # possible security hole? Device app can send any entity id
    if (
        not zone
        or zone.state == STATE_UNAVAILABLE
        or zone.attributes.get(ATTR_PASSIVE)
    ):
        return None
    
    return zone

[issue-triage-workflows]

There hasn't been any activity on this issue recently. Due to the high number of incoming GitHub notifications, we have to clean some of the old issues, as many of them have already been resolved with the latest updates.
Please make sure to update to the latest Home Assistant version and check if that solves the issue. Let us know if that works for you by adding a comment 👍
This issue has now been marked as stale and will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[tom-parkinson]

I'm not sure if anyone will see this, but @dakone22 has offered much more insight than I can on the issue. Any idea how to get this resurfaced?

[vvac]

This issue still persists in the newest version - zone is still being presented non-friendly when Privacy == Zone Name Only.

[djegum]

I have the same issue in my HomeAssistant instance. I found out about this issue after setting the tracking to zone only. The number of people in a zone isn't updated, besides the Home zone.

I am currently at work and HA doesn't trigger the automation linked to this zone.

[n15c]

Hey there,
Got the same issue, is there a workaround (beside changing to precise location)?

[issue-triage-workflows]

There hasn't been any activity on this issue recently. Due to the high number of incoming GitHub notifications, we have to clean some of the old issues, as many of them have already been resolved with the latest updates.
Please make sure to update to the latest Home Assistant version and check if that solves the issue. Let us know if that works for you by adding a comment 👍
This issue has now been marked as stale and will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[tom-parkinson]

This hasn't been fixed

[vvac]

Agreed with Tom pt., 30 sie 2024 o 00:42 Tom Parkinson ***@***.***> napisał(a):

…

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[tivoo]

+1 on this request. Experiencing the exact same issue.

[issue-triage-workflows]

There hasn't been any activity on this issue recently. Due to the high number of incoming GitHub notifications, we have to clean some of the old issues, as many of them have already been resolved with the latest updates.
Please make sure to update to the latest Home Assistant version and check if that solves the issue. Let us know if that works for you by adding a comment 👍
This issue has now been marked as stale and will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[MitchTalmadge]

Still an issue

[vvac]

Confirm - still an issue śr., 11 gru 2024 o 16:33 Mitch Talmadge ***@***.***> napisał(a):

…

Still an issue — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#105773 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AEO35JYDOM7XVS46ID4NC3D2FBLM5AVCNFSM6AAAAABAVQ5XVCVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDKMZWGMZDQMBZGQ> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[ncd7]

I just enabled zone only privacy in the companion app and this broke my dashboard. As in it doesn't show the user friendly zone name and as a secondary effect doesn't show the correct icon either.

This has been an issue for over a year so I think someone from the community will have to fix it. There is a reasonable suggestion above. Could we brave a PR perhaps?