Google Location Services are fundamentally broken and have been for years

[@TechnologyConnextras]

Apologies for the vertical video. Also, yes - I have an office now! What's most irritating about this? It sometimes works. And then later it doesn't. There's absolutely no rhyme or reason to it and until whoever is at the helm wakes up and starts tackling this, I will never recommend Nest or other Google Smart Home products to anybody.

[@Junedmx]

No need to apologise man .... This has to be done at the end... I don't use Google stuff and can't understand what the actual problem you are facing but wish it gets resolved soon

[@Targe0]

@@Junedmx The problem is, certain automations can be set to only happen when you are at that location. Like turning your lights on when you get home, or turning them off when you leave. It's a potentially very powerful tool, but if it doesn't work reliably, it's a worthless function to bother with.

[@YourFavouriteComment]

Hey Alec, good to know we both have a 6a, otherwise great budget phone but I agree google home is a black box. I have mine linked to third party smart plugs (sorry no clap plugs) and they only respond to voice commands maybe 25% of the time. The other 75 they can't be found by Google despite being on the same WiFi and responding perfectly fine through the manufacturer app -.-

[@pvanukoff]

I will never recommend any "smart" home product because they all rely on giving control of access to your home to a soulless corporation. Remember the guy who was locked out of his home because Amazon thought he said something racist?

[@Jaymac720]

Is the office going to be for other activities, or is it replacing the studio?

[@joshuaschilling7374]

Eh, give it 6 months, they will just kill off the service.

[@DrKoneko]

Google? Nooooo they'd never kill off a product....

[@davebennett5069]

they only kill the things that work really well though, so once they get it fixed that's when they'll kill it

[@marksando3082]

More likely give it a few months and it'll just break in a new and exciting way!

[@faeinthebay]

Basically they already did. My friend worked on the Google Nest team and they laid off almost everyone a year ago. Just a skeleton crew left to maintain the app and servers.

[@chrismeandyou]

probably do that when too many complain and they don't want to pay to fix them

[@Yopop1]

As someone who hates how his Pixel, Homes, and Nest Cameras have all gone to crap, I would be so for a "Here are obvious things Google does wrong despite being around forever" arc.

[@JeffSmith_]

They always release something amazing, that works brilliantly, then basically let it die a slow death until they release the new thing, which is objectively worse than the old thing, but they end support for the old and force you onto the new thing anyway.

[@Adderkleet]

They just removed my ability to hold the circle-button (Home button?) and activate Assistant. So now I can either disable my "hold power button for power menu" option, or try tapping the back of my phone twice to activate Assistant.

[@dorianthegray]

The sad thing is that it's all the major companies so it's not like you can switch and do better. I switched from a pixel 3 to an iphone 13 mini (the smallest smartphone I could get my hands on quickly), and boy howdy I've run into dozens of little frustrations like this. Dumb shit on the level of "Ipad doesn't have a calculator app". Did you know it wasn't until iOS 17 that the iphone added the functionality to have multiple timers on their default clock app? Did you know you still can't set it to vibrate to alert, you have to have it make noise if you want an alert? Did you know that the alarm volume is linked to the ringer volume, but it's proportional, so you have to turn the ringer up to hear calls and notifications clearly and turn it down so that it's not normandy invasion loud in the morning. I swear none of these companies care about small quality of life changes anymore.

[@someguy9175]

​​@@sncy5303Your last point makes no sense. Privacy doesn't mean you have to make your product shittier. In fact, in this case you could solve the notification issue by just throwing away the notification if the device isn't connected to the home wifi network or checking the location at receive time, all done locally.

[@Slurpee_Burger]

I don’t think you know what the word “arc” means…

[@zdanee]

Conversation at Google probably: "Hey, this one youtuber made a video about a bug in our app. Will you fix it?" "Nah, that's too much effort. What was the app again?" "Nest or something" "Okay, put it in the graveyard! No app, no bug! Problem solved!"

[@Hansence]

You're so right on this. Before they took weather out of Google News app, I get temperature around 8℃ all day every day, even though where I live only reach that low maybe 5 days a year, and average at 23.5℃. They never fix it, and doesn't show where they think I am. Now it's gone.

[@Hansence]

You're so right on this. Before they took weather out of Google News app, I get temperature around 8℃ all day every day, even though where I live only reach that low maybe 5 days a year, and average at 23.5℃. They never fix it, and doesn't show where they think I am. Now it's gone.

[@KSPRAYDAD]

Pretty sure they'll fix it if they can add a chat function to it.

[@paololololol]

@@KSPRAYDADthey’ve fixed like six chat apps at this point I would just be surprised they don’t kill their pixel line at this point

[@KSPRAYDAD]

@@paololololol They're rolling everything into KZbin so...KZbin Phone it is.

[@christophertstone]

The Google Home team did an AMA the other day (this week?) and got absolutely ROASTED for this shit. Their responses were pretty clear, management doesn't care unless the "fix" will make the share price shoot up.

[@chelmrtz]

Tech products in general rn sadly

[@xiggywiggs]

@@chelmrtz *more like companies in general, historically and rn sadly

[@zlcoolboy]

Problem is, not doing fixes like this will ultimately lower the share price because people will think more negatively of the company.

[@Archgeek0]

Oooh, yeah, management needs replacement ASAP, then, that kind of attitude will shred the company's reputation, delete their customer base, and ultimately burn the whole thing into golden parachutes. Those guys are pulling a Jack Welch and should be unceremoniously fired about it.

[@laurencefraser]

@@xiggywiggs Ehh, companies historically, it's varied quite a bit, because the culture and laws the goverened such things actually encouraged long term sustainability and profitability over 'share prices must always go up sharply even at the expense of everything else'. And most companies opperated accordingly. Not that it didn't happen, but it wasn't the Norm like it is now.

[@cdibona]

I used to work for Google, the entire stack of nest from the backend to the frontend(s), home, nest, etc... is deeply broken.

[@patricknelson]

It sure feels like it. I loved Nest Cams before the Google buyout, or at least the ones that used the Nest app before being wedged into the Home app. In your experience, does that “entire stack… deeply broken” statement apply even to their older nest infra? How about the old nest app? As a consumer who enjoyed the older nest cams and especially the app, they did miss some features maybe, but they felt solid. Their excuse of migrating away due to legacy issues seemed reasonable, except what they replaced it with was utter garbage. 🗑️

[@absalomdraconis]

Under the assumption that it uses Google Maps, that by itself is already a point against it. The system seems to have no credible understanding that volumes are of interest, which undermines all actual usage for locations.

[@johnm3067]

They trying to beat Microsoft at their own game????

[@quarterburnt]

Google’s entire corporate culture is truly FUBAR. Things like this will never be addressed because it’s not some new and shiny project with the potential for promotion.

[@traveller23e]

They're great at data integration when it has to do with data collection, not anytime else.

[@pooroldpedro]

if you work at google on AI , or whatever the current craze of the month is, then you're loved and showered with money. If you work on an existing / older product then you're considered a sad loser. That's everything you need to know.

[@dkosmari]

One more thing you need to know: Sundar Pichai uses iPhone, not Android.

[@benanderson89]

​@@dkosmariyup. It's always telling when an employee, especially a senior one, doesn't use their own products. I worked at Renault-Nissan in the early to mid 2010s, and all the Nissan employees were more than happy to drive the Nissans built at that factory. The Renault employees all agreed that Renaults were terrible cars; one senior manager at Renault even drove a Peugeot!

[@deadadam666]

the answer is .... dont work for google

[@dkosmari]

@@benanderson89 Pichai is the CEO of Alphabet and Google, not just a senior employee. It's even worse.

[@Jcewazhere]

Even those AI devs are getting shafted. Google makes billions off their labor while they make millions at most. The general software devs are shafted harder, making tens or low hundreds of thousands while google et all rake in millions and billions. Worker ownership wouldn't solve everything, but it would get more people paid closer to what they're worth.

[@finkelmana]

I learned two important things in this video: 1) There is a National Burrito Day 2) I missed National Burrito Day

[@bobbyunicorn]

But now you're prepared for next year! Get training soldier 🫡

[@lucas5050505]

I had to stop using the home/away feature on Google and Nest. It’s so frustrating

[@TechnologyConnextras]

Hopefully somebody reads all these comments and realizes *there's a problem here!*

[@Jon-hx7pe]

it's better to just program the thermostat and over-ride as required.

[@SkeletonGuts]

@@Jon-hx7pe He's not talking about a thermostat in the video, he's talking about security cameras

[@Jon-hx7pe]

this little comment thread is about the nest and that feature@@SkeletonGuts

[@SkeletonGuts]

@@Jon-hx7pe Nest is a brand, not just their thermostat. Nest also makes security cameras.

[@JouvaMoufette]

The real news here is that we know this is The Future because you're using the jingle from The Jetsons

[@averyeml]

My first thought was that one part of The Simpsons’ theme song but you’re right

[@Hobo_X]

I remember when the Pixel 2 first came out, one of its biggest features was "Now Playing" - basically Shazam that is always running and shows the song right on your lock screen without having to open the phone at all. This feature was so big, they had _commercials_ for it. Only a couple months after launch, they broke the feature in an update. ...And it took them nearly two years to fix the feature. It was just gone for that entire length of time. When it finally came back I had actually forgotten the feature was missing for all that time. Another thing they broke at that same time? Smart unlock based on location. And that was across all Android, not Pixels. The feature let's you tell your phone to not ask for a lock screen password anymore when at home, or whatever you designate as "home" from GPS. The duration to fix that feature? Something like 4 years. Most products from Google are broken in big ways and they go unfixed. It's frankly embarrassing. Your point about things "just working" is spot on though. A lot of this began when Google started to attempt to clone Apple's "just works" magic ~12 years ago, except they do it extremely half-assed. Now Apple is way more egregious in this regard, but at least they make sure core functionality operates correctly.

[@sharp14x]

It's fraud, and they shouldn't get away with it.

[@traveller23e]

Microsoft also does its fair share of "just works" shit. I remember buying some bluetooth earbuds that had perceptible lag on win 10 and googling led me right to a four-year-old post on the issue. The first microsoft reply was a link to the "how to connect to a bluetooth device" help section (RTFM from Microsoft, off to a good start...). Then the next reply from them was a technical spec sheet regarding how to build a bluetooth device. After that there were no more comments from them, only other posters many of whom had the same issue and a few who'd gotten a fix to work (only for the fixes to break a few months later) I use Linux now.

[@Max-mx5yc]

I always love walking around in circles like an idiot because maps is pointing me the wrong direction, even though my compass app is completely fine

[@creesch]

Ah yeah! The figure eight "calibration" of maps because it can't realize on its own that when I have been walking in a straight line towards something it maybe needs to point in that direction as well...

[@WojciechPietrzok]

@@creeschdoes the figure eight calibration even exist anymore? Or did they just moved it somewhere deep in the options I can't find it anymore

[@CheapFlashyLoris]

To be fair, it's needing to blend the (often unreliable) compass data with accelerometer and GPS data to come up with a likely heading vector that works across different situations. It gets more confusing when you're in motion and it tries to be more of a bearing indicator than a heading indicator.

[@Max-mx5yc]

@@creesch im still not convinced about the figure eight being more than a placebo, but i sure as hell look really cool whenever i wave my phone around like a madman. one day scientists shall discover along which axis the figure eight has to be done

[@Max-mx5yc]

@@CheapFlashyLoris its just weird that it is so much worse at it than everything else

[@seanplace8192]

Google, please track my location. *Google:* Um, I think you're at the office? IDK. 🤷 Google, please don't track my location. *Google:* Ok... 🕵

[@nickwallette6201]

"Don't track my location." "You're in front of your fridge, and you're low on milk. 2%. In a carton. Not organic. tsk.."

[@patricknelson]

… …

[@CheezeCracker]

Google: Intrigued, a user doesn't want to be tracked. Track the hell out of them and get any data we can while we can

[@JoelKalich]

Wild that home assistant, an open source software that I host myself, manages to do this perfectly fine. I also love the power that it gives to automate things I could never do with Google or Alexa, like turning of the AC when the outside temperature drops below a threshold. Or, unlike Alexa, allowing me to write automation that run when the first person gets home, or the last person leaves home. It really is the way to go if you're an enthusiast. Back when I had my Nest thermostat, and before home assistant, sometimes I literally couldn't turn on the thermostat when I got home. It was great!

[@rcguymike]

The Google Home Automation scripts allow you to do all that stuff as of the last year or so. So far the broadcast and okGoogle functions are the only flakey ones I've found😅

[@user2C47]

I also use HA, and it makes the other platforms (Google, Tuya, etc) feel dumbed down to the point of near-uselessness in comparison.

[@The18107j]

If you can think of it, you can do it in Home Assistant. The only problem is, you may never stop using Home Assistant. There is always one more optimisation...

[@spopeblue]

Yup, HA knows my location based on wifi connection on my phone - and it works flawlessly. So much more reliable than Google/Android geofencing.

[@JoelKalich]

@@spopeblue I'm just using geofencing and it's working great. Exact same feature as Google is trying to use, except it actually works.

[@janedoe3043]

What I hate the most is that they reject location service to apps unless you allow them to scan your wi-fi for location services. Like. No ass holes, you have my GPS, you don't need to also scan my WiFi to steal more info. This wasn't a necessity two years ago, so why is it now?!?!

[@JonBrase]

Yeah, these days I can't get any navigation from Google maps without "precise location" on. Guess what, mofos? GPS is accurate to 5 feet and I'm above ground. You can get all the location info you need to get me from A to B with reference to that alone.

[@EvanBoyar]

Due to low use, the "location" feature will be shutting down on June 1st, 2024. Don't worry, you'll be able to download location history until July 1st, 2025 using Google Takeout. For users with niche use cases, paper maps and a compass may be a suitable replacement.

[@laurencefraser]

Heck, for most people, at least in places with non-defective infrastructure, you don't even need the compass. Street signs and house numbers are Great! ... and the number of people who ignore them to follow Blatantly Incorrect directions from google maps is rather baffling. ... why are you turning off the road the house you want is on, a single digit number of houses before the one you're after, in order to get to it? ... because google maps doesn't understand that fences and rear properties exist, apparently! Wouldn't happen if you were actually looking at the signs rather than google.

[@bwofficial1776]

I've started using a compass because Maps' compass is janky. I use Maps to see that I need to walk North and use my compass to start walking North.

[@dashcamandy2242]

"Google Takeout" - sounds like it could be a competitor to Uber Eats!

[@quinnkirlew9892]

Due to low use, Google Takeout will be shutting down last week. Don't worry, you can still buy into our latest project that will be bricked in a few months. For users who actually expect long term support...lmao get bent honestly.

[@MazeFrame]

To quote an Australian guy: It is almost like the biggest companies make the worst junk!

[@orondf343]

Found the fellow DankPods subscriber

[@nickwallette6201]

This was the first thing that popped into my mind during this rant.

[@JustOneAsbesto]

Yes. Big corporations get big by prioritizing profit over quality, making money quick, and buying out competitors; so over time quality suffers, and we're left with mass-produced literal trash.

[@Slash0mega]

​@@JustOneAsbesto Nah, most of the time they get big by genuinely being a good service/product, and then they incorporate and start stripping quality down to get decimal pieces of profit to please shareholders rather than costumers.

[@twiceineverymoment]

Whenever someone tells me "it just works", my immediate response is "what happens when it doesn't?" Not if, when.

[@fintux]

I think they use the word "just" in the meaning "barely" 😅 Makes usually much more sense that way.

[@nickwallette6201]

100%. We have a model of how tech and innovation should work. Look at the Internet. Open protocols, managed by people who don't stand to gain personally and financially from their dissemination, except to the extent that everyone does. Products like this, developed by companies that consume market share, are not built to last. They depend on you remaining loyal to the original vendor to work at all, and only so long as it remains a viable carrot. Afterwards, it's replaced by the next lure. If you want longevity, we need to start looking into a shift back to cooperative development.

[@drsquirrel00]

Just works, just breaks. That's all you get.

[@dumbuz]

@@nickwallette6201 This is the most intelligent comment I've read on KZbin in a while. Thanks for taking the time to use your brain and speak the truth

[@DumHed]

@@fintux this is how I always interpet it :)

[@deadadam666]

googles rapid descent into enshitification is just incredible, every single service they own has gotten so bad ive started looking for alternatives. remember when their motto was 'dont be evil'

[@MoiraPrime]

Google's "Location Accuracy" on Android is flat out broken too. I've often found with it on it thinks I'm 20 miles away, the instant I turn it off my location is suddenly precise. But a ton of apps flat out refuse to work without Location Accuracy turned on.

[@Fay7666]

Depends on the phone tho, some of my past phones get perfect GPS lock anywhere including planes & shit but my Surface Duo can't know which state it's in without WiFi scanning.

[@UD503J]

Exactly! And the developer guidelines specifically say to defer to coarse location information unless precise location is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.

[@MoiraPrime]

@@Fay7666 yeah... and it's wild because you'd think Google's own phones would do this well but almost all of my worst examples of bad location accuracy have happened on Google phones, from the Nexus 6P to the Pixel XL to even the Pixel 6.

[@Green__one]

@@UD503J Precise location is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY for hoovering up all your personal information to sell to ad companies. Remember, you're not the customer, you're the product. I think this was always a horrible implementation from Google anyway, they never should tell the end app which permissions it does or doesn't have, it should handle that at the OS level. Precise tracking on, give an exact location, precise tracking off, give a random location within a certain distance. same with all other permissions, if you grant the permission, it gives the app the correct info. Don't grant the permission, it gives dummy info.

[@swedneck]

Meanwhile my pixel 3a running lineageOS reliably places my location within meters of reality even when i'm inside my second floor apartment of a 3 floor concrete apartment building! It's truly astounding how one of the largest tech companies in the world can bollocks things up so severely that a team of volounteer programmers can produce a highly competent product by basically shaving off the extraneous nonsense and plugging the holes left behind.

[@stinkertonsden]

I've had an open complaint/issue about this very issue for over 6 years now. This is why we stopped using the Nest Cams unless we're physically not home anymore. We just unplug them because they're worthless otherwise. It took us less than 6 months to rip out the Nest thermostat and replace it with EcoBees, which HAVE YET to not recognize when we're home or away.

[@itogi]

A lot of stuff is broken on Google nowadays, search engine answer quality (even on KZbin) is really low.

[@edgeeffect]

What gets me are the alternatives "we're not as good as Google, but we'll plant a tree and not collect your private data"... where what we really need is "We just search for the words you type in!"... and it seems none of these great "tech entrepreneurs" have the brains to think of that.

[@mrfree47-im1ir]

It’s abysmal. Almost dead at this point.

[@Heizenberg32]

I remember when Pokemon Go came out it brought a lot of location services oddness to the forefront. My favorite one was when you happened to be at/ near a business that used multiple Wi-Fi networks that were the same across all of their locations. You could instantly teleport across the world to another of that business's locations. The "fingerprint" of Wi-Fi networks visible to your device happened to match the networks known to be at that location!

[@Green__one]

I remember in the early days of the Pokemon Go craze using location spoofing apps, not to cheat, but to actually put myself where I really was!

[@rocbolt]

I’ve been using google timeline since it was called latitude, I am willingly giving google my every location every minute of the day. It is so ridiculously broken. I fight with the results every day, I can’t just tell it where I am, it’s always “offline” unless you ask it twice and then oh it’s working. Once a week it decides I walked around in a star shape around my home for 13 hours overnight. It’s unwilling to guess what mode of transportation I used to travel down an interstate at 75mph. I feel like I am the last one on earth willing to put this much effort into a feature that google themselves seems to have forgot exists, like the server got drywalled over and it’s just existing without input until the light switch that controls the outlet it’s plugged into someday gets unceremoniously flipped off by the handle of a broom from a passing janitor sweeping the floors

[@quinnkirlew9892]

Yup I like when it thinks I've been driving for 2 days straight because I walked outside when I was at home during that time

[@UnexpectedTokens]

Google don't care about their smart home offering anymore, google being google i wouldn't be surprised if all of this gets sunset in a couple of years home assistant is the way to go

[@computeraidedworld1148]

I'm so glad that someone else is having issues with this. It thinks I have been in Florida for months, I live very very far away from Florida and have not been there for years.

[@hive_indicator318]

Mine thought I was in Illinois for years, despite never stepping foot in the state. About a month ago, after being correct for a while, switched me to Denver. At least I've been there, even if it was 30 years ago

[@DynamixWarePro]

It often says I am in a town 8-10 miles away from where I actually am and I only go to that town once or twice a month if that. It sometimes gets it right but once it was really far off and said I was in London, England and I have never been there!

[@computeraidedworld1148]

@@DynamixWarePro right, I know its doing it by IP, but like, A) you have so much information about me B) I will open maps and it knows where I am, but if say I want to know where the nearest Lowes is well, it will spit back that its 376 miles away and will take me 20 hours to get there and then it draws a line to one 25 minutes away. Or it will route me to one in Orlando. It makes zero sense. And you can't fix it, there is no support, thats what blows me away. I dont need a human, I need box to type in my IP range and correct it.

[@kAlvaro]

My wife's Pixel shows the weather for our city or for another province, depending on the time of the day.

[@JollyTVance]

"Flordia" 😂

[@miahsbrokengarage]

Somebody at Google will fix this only when they might be able to get a promotion from doing the work.

[@KevinT3141]

Yep, I had a friend that worked at Google for a few years after they bought his employer, and from what he explained to me of their performance review system it really only rewards inventing new stuff; not maintaining, improving, or fixing the old stuff. That is totally messed up for a company with so much free-floating cash, not to spend any of it making their products actually work.

[@nagi603]

Unfortunately we have a winner here. Keeping the lights on does not earn a promotion. In fact, it is made maddeningly hard according to (ex)-googlers.

[@Humongous_Pig_Benis]

Well, if this is like Microsoft, never fix it and do something new and shiny instead. (that will also not work)

[@grayrabbit2211]

Google only seems to be doing social promotions these days.

[@justforplaylists]

​@@KevinT3141 They also have a very flat organizational structure, which makes it difficult to have any strategic coordination. That's why they make multiple different products that do the same thing poorly instead of one product that does it well.

[@edgeeffect]

I LOVE the snark in the description!!!! Whilst I'm sitting at my desk, Google momentarily teleports me to about 3 miles away about 3 times a day. Why single out location services?.. KZbin recommendations are hopelessly skewed (towards what, I'm not so sure... something to do with advertising probably)... And Google's search really really really needs to be told "just search for the words I (beep)ing type in!!!!"

[@icebergmm]

Google is a company with 7,000 hands, and none of them have any idea what the others are doing.

[@atrifle8364]

I suspect worring about social issues has made technology something of an also ran

[@fazzitron]

I think the even more important news is that it's National Burrito Day

[@UD503J]

Top comment.

[@nickwallette6201]

Tech industry in a nutshell. Burritos and disruption at scale. Unsupervised children with the keys to the economy, surrounded by people who won't tell them no, and too visible and too critical to the consumer for the government to risk ending up on their sh-list.

[@fuzziestlumpkin]

For which nation?

[@kristopherpoulsen653]

​@@fuzziestlumpkin In a just world, it would be all of them.

[@MonkeyJedi99]

@@kristopherpoulsen653 All the nations, all the days. Any burrito can be inclusive, to include anything wrapped in a bread-like holder. Gyro, calzone, cannoli... heck, even Hot Pockets, if you're so inclined!

[@wiladam]

At Google HQ: "Oh no! Another service of ours seems to be lagging behind. What could we possibly do?! Quick! Abandon ship! AbANdoN SHiIIiPpp!"

[@Inkompetent]

And then the next minute they wonder why no one trusts them and their products. "We just cancel basically everything we create. Why doesn't anyone use our products instead of those of other brands?"

[@Rodikachu]

I have problems with that too. About every 1 to 3 hours Google thinks I've left home and turns off the lights. I was so frustrated by it and it took me forever to figure out why it was happening. That's why I ended up deactivating the function.

[@akaJughead]

This is why we got rid of our Google Home stuff about a year ago. Google products are unreliable, and actually lose functions over time.

[@Champabay]

What do you have now that works better?

[@andy_liga]

​@@ChampabayHome assistant gang here! I know it sounds absurd, but maintaining your own server is easier, less frustrating and, mostly, more private than anything that Google has to offer... The last thing I want is to have companies literally run my own home 😅

[@Green__one]

@@andy_liga I was just pointing out that this video's complaint is but one of MANY reasons why I use home assistant instead of google home. My voice assistants are still Google, but they route commands through home assistant. That said, Google Assistant can only do a fraction of the things it used to be able to do, and with Home Assistant's "year of the voice" that just passed, I'm certainly considering looking more in depth at going that route instead.

[@benanderson89]

​@@Champabaythese amazing inventions called a "light switch" and a "programmable thermostat". My outdoor porch light even turns on automatically when you get close to it and only ever at night! I didn't even have to connect light switch™️ to the WiFi! It's like magic that it works so well!

[@laurencefraser]

@@benanderson89 Rule of thumb, nothing about your home should be any 'smart'er than it needs to be to actually do what you need it to do... Of course, sometimes what you need it to do actually does require it to be 'smart', at which point you go out of your way to keep outside control and influence over any element of it to an absolute minimum. (smoke alarm alerting the fire department? sure! Fridge talking to it's manufacturers (and from there just about anyone, but probably supermarket chains at minimum) about it's contents? Very no. ... honestly, your fridge shouldn't be talking to anyone or anything at all other than by way of lighting up indicators in the event of some sort of fault). Like, Cameras at the office (or at least the control system for them) being 'smart' enough to report to your phone if someone's moving around in the office when there's not supposed to be anyone there is fine, it's actually a pretty useful security alarm, but it shouldn't be talking to a third party at any point in the process of doing so, and honestly the way it should be checking if that was you or not is not tracking your location, it's checking if it can get to the phone it's reporting to directly via the local network or if it has to go through the internet first (in the former case you're obviously on site, in the latter case you are not).

[@musiqtee]

Yes… So, I de-smarted my not-so-smart-home two years ago, off of anything Google or Amazon -  hanging by a thread (pun…). Just a little later, my (Nordic) cloud provider suddenly wanted monthly cash for simple scheduling that was _free for eight years…!_ Now it’s de-clouded too - Home-Assistant and only local services provided by my own janky server cluster (old mini-PC, old tower PC, old Mac Mini, Pi 4). No down time yet (jinxed it, probably…)… 😅

[@Yorick257]

I'm working on a datalogger project atm and the downtime/power issues came up. My solution was to take a reasonably sized power bank with a pass-through function and power my Pi through it. I only needed to add a capacitor to smooth out the voltage when the power goes out (otherwise, the Pi would restart).

[@musiqtee]

@@Yorick257 Nice! I _was_ on the way to integrate power control and usage too, but then energy prices went crazy. I opted to brutally cut stuff out during peak price periods instead. They usually last like 2 hours morning and afternoon, and that was very effective. The Pi will get a “ups” maybe like you made. Otherwise, the house “works” if all the smartness (LAN, virtualization failover) fails. I kept the dumb switches in parallel or series. Backup heat is just a wood oven, but maybe I should “prep” more - it’s a foreign world out there… 😅👍

[@EC18FEA30B]

Google knows my home and work address, yet on my timelime they think I'm visiting the neighboring building to my work... EVERYDAY! Makes perfect sense, I skip work everyday hanging out next door, huh? Then I go home for lunch and return to the neighbor 🙄

[@girlinagale]

My Google location history always asks me if I'm visiting my next door house. I'm just at home and have told it multiple times. If I go for a walk in the woods Google location asks did I enjoy my visit to x business which happens to be a mile away.

[@ericcastle380]

Yeah but does your wife know?

[@laurencefraser]

@@girlinagale I'm not sure if that's better or worse than it actually managing to deliver advertising based on your location, which was part of the intended use of such functions.

[@girlinagale]

@@laurencefraser Google locations always snap to commercial places because that's the business Google are. A walk in the countryside becomes a visit to "Tansy's Dog Grooming", it's all biased towards business.

[@kristopherpoulsen653]

Programming is hard, dawg 🥱

[@thewebmachine]

Add this to the LONG list of reasons I have moved my whole home and smart life to Home Assistant. I still have my nest Doorbell and speakers, but they are subordinate to HA instead of the other way around. My house knows whether I'm home or not based on multiple cross-checked factors: GPS, WiFi network, my Lennox thermostat's room presence sensors, my Sonoff Zigbee presence sensors, and whatever else I tell it to monitor for home activity.

[@mlprd]

It is The Way

[@aSpeedbump]

Wholeheartedly agree. It's time to break free of our vendor lock-ins. Home Assistant is nearly infinitely configurable. Google's lost me since they're bricking my old Nest cams. I should have learned my lesson years ago when they bricked my Gen1 DropCam cameras, but I foolishly game them a second chance.

[@user_romanport]

On my Pixel, I constantly get advertisements and weather given to me for Chicago because that's where my AT&T connection's IP is geo-located to. I am nowhere near Chicago, I live in North Dakota. This is despite me having marked my home location and having Google Maps Timeline active so it records my location periodically. How Google's own services still think I'm in Chicago all the time is beyond me. Some of the Chicago-targeted ads I get are for Google's own services too, so it can't be the advertiser not understanding the geo tools!

[@bikeny]

Ok, so I have the samsung s21 ultra, based on where i am in NY it thinks I am a few miles away, but as soon I drive off my property it's ok. Remind me not to complain about that short distance problem. Last year I was in South Dakota and the problem was as you might imagine not terrific cell coverage to begin with out in the middle of nowhere. I had to remember to set up the Google Maps trip while indoors with the wi-fi and then once I drove about a half-mile, it would pick up enough of a bar to finish the route. Some towns I'd have the same problem while parked and after telling it 'HOME' it would spin its proverbial wheels until sometimes just 100 feet away I would be told "you are back online." O/T: I do miss my rancher neighbor's quarter of a cow I was hoping to buy this year.

[@swedneck]

meanwhile my weather app simply takes the coordinates from the GPS, checks what location from the weather service is closest, and shows that location :O It would literally be easier for google to do this, but noooooooooo

[@user2C47]

Meanwhile my weather app uses the location I entered manually, and doesn't reset itself at random.

[@JawzXlives]

As a Starlink customer this is incredibly annoying as my IP location can change at random depending on access node load and routing... Why ignore the GPS data that you clearly have, since Maps is always bothering me to review every place I go or answer questions about it (to be fair, I do both those things quite often), when you can make assumptions based on data that is know to be in accurate a lot of the time. My 3rd party app and widget seem to have no problems with this.

[@djp1234]

I guess Google products aren’t actually their product. We are the product that’s being sold to advertisers, and these Google apps are just bait for us.

[@plonk420]

yeah, i've lost trust in Google since they axed Hangouts forcing G.Voice users to use trash like... G.Voice

[@jicka]

I'm running a local Home Assistant setup (for privacy reasons) instead of using Google (or some other corporation's) smart home stuff. I have the same use case. I always believed that I was accepting a worse experience for the better privacy. Turns out, maybe not ! (To be fair, it still was a loooot of work to setup, but when it's stable and works, it stays working). I hope you find a way to fix this soon.

[@bosstowndynamics5488]

HA is only a worse experience in that a lot of stuff that's done manually and kind of circuitously in HA could be done semi automatically in single manufacturer cloud ecosystems, but it's much more reliable than many of those systems because it has far fewer round trip calls to random cloud services and it's made by people who actually use it and care about making it work.

[@jicka]

@@bosstowndynamics5488 Yes exactly ! I personally learned to enjoy having to think about how every part of my smart home works. But you do have to like tinkering. What baffles me with Google is that they could very well define a "local first" system for reliability while still pumping all the data asynchronously. As you say, they don't use it and don't seem to care.

[@laurencefraser]

You are accepting a 'more of a pain in the arse to set up' experience in exchange for privacy and an 'actually does what it is supposed to reliably once set up' experience. ... And possibly also a 'less likely to make things 'smart' when it's unnessecary and counterproductive'' experience.

[@coniferous3132]

@@jicka I prefer "you'll have to tinker" to "No, screw you" like nest tells me.

[@Zizzily]

So, I don't know how helpful this might be. I don't know if it works with the Nest cameras, but it seems to help my Nest thermostat at home. Got to Settings > Apps > Home > App Battery Usage > Unrestricted This may not fix it all the time, but this makes my Nest thermostat kick on as soon as I get home while I'm still in the garage and haven't walked past the thermostat. I hope this might help some.

[@BensOnTheRadio]

The deterioration of all of my Google Home Devices the past few years is just sad.

[@gakster29]

"Give me the option!" Tech companies: But... but....the chart shows people don't want options and us to decide for them. So we have to do that for EVERYONE!

[@RonParker]

Completely independently from any automation stuff, I spent several months wondering why sometimes when I opened Google Maps on my PC at home, it would zoom to somewhere in a nearby city rather than to where I actually was. I finally figured it out: when I got laid off from my job in that city, I never removed the "work" marker from Google Maps. And apparently it thought it should assume that I'm at work during the day, even when my phone is at home.

[@TheOneWhoMightBe]

I get that too, but I think it's because that's where the nearest Point-of-Presence for my ISP is. Using my tablet on Wifi on the same ISP works fine because it's using GPS instead.

[@RonParker]

@@TheOneWhoMightBe I'm on Starlink, so most IP geolocation stuff has no idea where I really am, but most of them think I'm in Seattle. Google Maps was the only thing that consistently placed me in Redmond, and it stopped doing that when I deleted my "work" waypoint.

[@0_o-848]

Discovering that by pure coincidence I use the exact same Jetsons Doorbell notification sound as this man has made my week

[@j616s]

Can't remember where I saw it, but apparently there's a saying in some parts of Google - "Nobody got promoted for fixing a bug". This is probably why issues like this don't get fixed. And why they kill products and bring out a new similar product later. "Launching" is incentivised more than "maintaining".

[@dragonwizord92]

This video is pretty funny I always find myself questioning whether the people that developed the software actually use the software and not found a glaring visual artifact or massive impaired bug that prevents me from using the software Whenever I do product developments I usually use the product for multiple weeks try to find flaws in my design and then I remake it sometimes it takes me 30 prototypes ( recently with the a camera cage) I believe this type of development is called eat your own dog food This development style I'm pretty sure it's falling out of favor primarily for cost-cutting measures

[@dkosmari]

On that note, Sundar Pichai admitted himself last year, he uses iPhone, not Android.

[@sterlingcrawford1218]

What's funny is that Nest has historically been good at location detection, so Google is actively making things worse

[@Green__one]

As they do with so many products. I find it so frustrating when they periodically remove existing functionality from products for no reason.

[@alpantone]

I've been using Android since the Nexus 5X, and this whole genre of location features has never worked through a decade of updates, rebrandings, and name changes. At the very least I'm glad I'm not the only one.

[@DeeSnow97]

one small thing on the wifi name thing: even if you have the same SSID (name) on your wifi, it will have a different fingerprint and google can tell it apart. they already do this to improve the precision of their location services -- they maintain a database of where literally every router in the world is, they check which routers your phone can see and how strongly, and they get a location data point from that one, which then gets correlated to gps, cellular, and any other data source to get a location as precise as possible. so there's absolutely no reason not to handle wifi networks here, they already do that elsewhere in the system

[@EvDelen]

Yeah, this is why I use Home Assistant now. Google sucks now.

[@minecraftchest1]

Google stuff has always sucked.

[@MonkeyJedi99]

I use physical light switches, a $15 hardware store thermostat (can even program warmer and cooler times!), locks that require brass keys, and for important information - a paper note pad and pen.

[@Aristo12]

Not having to be dependent on a cloud service is also a very big plus and you have full control over your data.

[@nate6862]

Yeah, that's probably what google engineers use too which is why they can't be bothered to fix their own product

[@patricknelson]

@@MonkeyJedi99 And for voice control: Tell your kid to turn off/on the lights and thermostats. Activation word: “Hey ”. Process is a bit buggy, doesn’t work all the time and can lead to psychological trauma, but there’s an update for that soon I think.

[@MartiMinchev]

You can check if the problem is in the underlying Google Location Services/Google Play Services, or the Home app. In Pixel settings > More security settings > Smart Lock, enable a Trusted Places location. Check if your phone is kept unlocked after a while. If it works, then the problem is with the Home app, not the core Google Play Services Location service.

[@DeviantOllam]

Oh 100% this has always been broken and likely will forever be broken. Hard agree. We are rather stuck in the Nest ecosystem at our present place since that's what we installed but as soon as we move we plan to ditch everything and switch to either Wyze or Ubiquiti I think.

[@dkosmari]

Sundar Pichai uses iPhone, not Android. I bet he doesn't use Nest either.

[@biggiecheese253]

@@dkosmari who the fuck is sundar pichai

[@dkosmari]

@@biggiecheese253 CEO of Alphabet/Google.

[@mrmimeisfunny]

Turns out Alec didn't blur the map he just works in the void.

[@ChrisLincoln]

Google's services are surprisingly bad at talking to each other. I'm regularly surprised that Google Surveys asks me if I've been to businesses that do not exist in my state. And using the smart lock location is always hit or miss.

[@Green__one]

Those google surveys are ridiculous. I doubt it's ever asked me a question it doesn't already know the answer to, and 99% of the surveys are "which business have you been to?" and 90% of my responses to those are "none of the above". That said, I haven't had to pay for anything on the play store in a long time because of the play store credits, so I'll keep answering them.

[@radiochu]

When I first got my Nest Thermostat I kept accidentally roasting my husband whenever I left the house during summer because I didn't think to tell him to turn on presence sensing on his phone. But also somehow physically walking around in the room with the thermostat didn't make it think "oh I bet someone's here" on any reliable basis.

[@Lillfot]

Well one thing that's been getting enshittified is location services, and that for a long time. Sony Xperia used to have this absolutely excellent simple tool to toggle stuff like WiFi and DND/vibration/ringtone based on location and some other stuff, and it JUST WORKED. Then one day I opened my phone and the app had updated and due to "pRiVAcY conSeRnS" the location options were just gone. No more DND and WiFi off at school, and then turn on sound for travelling away from school and then WiFi on and vibration only when I got home. Truly the start of the enshittification of everything for me.

[@thomasb4422]

01:40 "old man yells at cloud (services)" :)

[@JimCullen]

I have no idea why or how this happened, but Google seems to have three, or maybe even four, different addresses for where my "home" is, and different parts of the Google Maps app show a different one of them. In one place, it's just the correct address. Apartment/street number, street. In a other place, it has just recently started giving the wrong apartment number for no discernible reason; so if I lived in apartment 12, 40 My Street, it's now saying 10/40 My Street. A third place just drops the apartment number entirely and gives street address only; 40 My Street. And then there's one place in Google Maps where it decides I don't live in my street at all, I actually live on the main road that my street comes off of, at an address that does not exist on that street because the corner house faces my street. It is absolutely bonkers and I cannot find a way to force Google to just use the home address that _it already knows I have set on my account._

[@YaztromoX]

The big problem with using your WiFi network name and SSID as a location determinator for home automations is that this is easily spoofed. If you had an automation which unlocked your doors when your phone detected it was connected to your WiFi network using only network name and SSID, then _anyone_ could spoof that information in a public place, and have your phone unlock your doors without your knowledge. Google could get around this is you have a Google-enabled device (and it could potentially be any existing Google enabled device) on your network that you could cryptographically authenticate with to verify you are indeed on your network (and not a spoofed network) - that would just require will on Google’s part.

[@TechnologyConnextras]

I mean I guess, but if you're like me and don't have anything like a smart lock (and never, ever in a million years will and DEFINITELY won't give Google any influence over it) it feels like it should be an option. (edit to add:) Additionally, this vulnerability could be at least partially addressed with a positive notification that the home has switched modes. Or, perhaps, detection of the SSID is a trigger to force a location check with GPS. There's an endless list of smarter options than whatever the hell they're doing now.

[@YaztromoX]

@@TechnologyConnextras - I’ve been running Z-wave smart locks for years. Their biggest vulnerabilities are still the same as a regular dumb lock: guy with a crowbar, or guy with a lock pick set (at least for locks with integrated keyways). But Google does have to think about these things - if you provide the automation capability, _someone_ is going to wind up using it in a secure environment where they likely shouldn’t, and don’t understand the security implications of doing so. I agree Google can likely come up with a better way to verify your location if they put a bit of effort into it (a cryptographic authentication with a Google Home or SmartTV or the like on your LAN that relayed the results back to your phone via Google’s services would do the trick) - they just can’t do it in an overly facile manner. If only because it would be bad for their reputation if news kept coming out about grandma’s house getting broke into because of easily spoofible automations that she lacked the knowledge or ability to analyze the security implications of.

[@TechnologyConnextras]

@@YaztromoX I think the key problem is that they can use that as a shield to be lazy. And as I said, if the automation based on SSID were available but what it _actually_ did was force the app to check and corroborate location info from GPS before allowing the automation to run, I probably wouldn't be complaining right now and the security vulnerability wouldn't be there.

[@StephenMatrese]

The phone could connect to a google device on the network to avoid spoofing SSIDs

[@YaztromoX]

@@TechnologyConnextras - I am in complete agreement. TBH, I don’t use location service on my iDevices with my home automation because I find they’re simply not accurate enough. I’d _much_ rather authenticate my location by having my iPhone/Apple Watch/iPad connect to and authenticate with my Apple TV when connected to WiFi to let the system know I’m home than rely on GPS (part of this being because due to an elevation change I have to drive past my house at about 25m away, but then travel almost another km to actually get home). So if it helps…it’s not really any better on the Apple side either.

[@erikoftheinternet]

I love how 'company can remotely brick via software update or dropping support' is a consideration these days when trying to figure out how long an appliance will be used for

[@Green__one]

simple rules for purchasing products: - Does it need any "smart" features? - No? Can I ignore them or turn them off? - No? Don't buy. - Yes? Never connect it to a network. - Yes? Can it be used locally without a cloud connection? - No? Don't buy. - Yes? Firewall it, and connect it to Home Assistant. - Does it get OTA updates? - Yes? Can they be blocked? - No? Don't buy. - Yes? Firewall it. - Will any of my desired features be "added later through OTA?" - Yes? Don't buy.

[@nickwallette6201]

@@Green__one I bought a 4K TV years ago. Still haven't told it about my WiFi. MAYBE a firmware update would fix a couple of minor things I would like to see improved. OTOH, maybe it would run slower, and periodically break the ability to change inputs until I reboot. So, devil you know and all that.

[@boxxdrmtb]

Thank you so much for making this video. This seems like such a simple thing to figure out and I've been just as frustrated as you screaming at my phone how the hell can you think I'm away, you are connected to the home Wi-Fi and I literally said to myself why can't I just configure this so that it always assume I'm home when connected to home Wi-Fi It should be like a checkbox. Make this right Google!

[@kingzach74]

MacroDroid is an amazing app that will solve that problem for you. Unlike IFTTT it's free.

[@NotMikeDEV]

It appears to me (you are zoomed right out to make this less obvious) that you are not inside the tiny target area you have defined. Increase the radius of the location to match the inaccuracy in the GPS. When I have tried defining the office location based on GPS I found I had to set the radius to 500m larger than the actual property if I want it to work while I am indoors with poor reception. Also, regarding the WiFi thing - I don't use locations in Google home, but I have a rule configured in android to switch my phone to silent when I am connected to the office WiFi. This actually works better than GPS because when I go outside for a smoke I am outside of WiFi range so my phone switches back to normal mode in case someone is trying to get hold of me. I also did the same thing at university to silence my phone whenever I was on campus, so I wouldn't forget to silence it in a lecture... works as reliably as the WiFi coverage in the target area.

[@nate_0723]

I thought I was the only one! I am so annoyed by the constant PERSON SEEN! notifications when I am at home! My roommate's phone is on the account and has the same problem.

[@PPGMatt]

I have been fighting this EXACT issue with my Eufy security cameras for years now, despite my constant feedback about this issue it fails to be resolved. Some days it will work, others it doesn’t even try.

[@marklefler4007]

Any chance you have an android device still at work? For my nest, it only goes to away if all connected android devices leave. Did you share or move any wifi equipment between home and office?

[@dashcamandy2242]

0:42 - Alec, using the Jetson's doorbell as a notification sound just made me grin from ear-to-ear. Gawd how I loved watching that show as a kid. "Ancient" video, I know... But I've noticed similar issues with Google Location Services on my cell phone. When I get my monthly "here's everywhere you've been" report, it usually says I've traveled between 16 and 389 miles during that month - it varies. In reality, I drive 1,600-1,700 miles a month, I drive literally the same exact route every day, so something's REALLY off. I'd rather not have Location Services turned on at all, but too many apps get pissy over that. (Why does KZbin's app demand Location Services be on, and then send me ads specifically targeted to Arizona or California? I LIVE IN CONNECTICUT.)

[@zacharywhiddon8686]

I've had this same issue with my nest thermostat for literally 6 years. Tried it on multiple android phones (including a pixel) and a few iPhones, and it has never worked properly. I always have to manually turn off eco mode when I get home, even though it is supposed to do that automatically when I get close to home.

[@gblargg]

I use location history in Google Maps and it's gone to crap over the past few years. It rarely shows my day properly, and generates phantom trips in the middle of the night to places I go often.

[@jckf]

This pretty much sums up my experience with the Nest wifi mesh things as well. They _should_ Just Work™, but I've never experienced that and have zero methods of figuring out why that is or how to solve it. It's just broken. Six Nest things cost about the same as 5 Unifi APs and a controller btw.

[@fabienmesterial]

I had my lights turned on during the night because it thought "hey you're home now!". So I disabled everything...

[@legowerewolf]

a tip: in the presence sensing settings, you can hit the home/away buttons under "your current location" and it _should_ learn over time

[@Yorick257]

Coming up next: we added ML to the keyboard. If you hit the buttons consistently - it *should* learn over time! Although, maybe they do it already. I consistently mistype a few letters on my phone now, but it never was the case before.

[@TechnologyConnections]

oh I've been doing that many, many times. still broken.

[@legowerewolf]

@@TechnologyConnections ah, well. worked for me when I was having this issue a month ago. good luck ig

[@Zeydarchist]

I hateeeeee how when I try to use Google maps and I try to get to work on transit, and I work overnights, so when I try to check when I will be leaving, I should have two busses I can take, BUT when I use maps, I get one bus, that shows the most up-to-date arrival time, and then the second bus I can take, suddenly says that the next time this bus is coming around, at 5 am the next day, when I know it comes around 10:30pm. Its so stupid cuz no matter which bus I try to take, it shows the next arrival time at the next day, but the one that's coming maybe a minute earlier, is suddenly coming at 10:35pm or something. It's so frustrating.

[@TedLedbetter]

Yep, the Nest app for the older generation cameras seems to work much better with this. The Home app is still half baked all these years later IMO.

[@Mozilla2012]

This is the content I love to see on Connextras. Real talk. Gimme more rants like this. I was an intern at Google and was once told that my project "gave the user too many options." This was a decade ago and I've never forgiven them for it.

[@nickwallette6201]

This is a trend that has always infuriated me. I cannot express the rage I felt when I tried to access a device I own, in my home network, that I log into once a presidential election or two, and Chrome _would not let me access its GUI_ because the certificate had expired. Not that it _really_ needed a certificate, but since EVERYTHING has to be https now, no matter how trivial ..... All I had to do was look up a secret JS incantation and seal it with a drop of my own blood to get permission for me to access the web interface of a device I own in an IP space I control with no access to or from the Internet.

[@berto1014]

Google is a bunch of losers now. Absolutely wrecked their reputation from the early 2010s. Now when I think of Google I think of the South Park episode where all the hybrid drivers are sniffing their own farts. I'm actively de-Googling my house.

[@Hirudin]

I got an Ecobee thermostat to replace my Nest thermostat because Google couldn't seem to get its crap together enough to turn it off while I was away from home ALL DAY and would occasionally decide to turn off my (overly-sized) furnace while I ACTUALLY WAS home. Unfortunately, the Ecobee app isn't cooperating with my phone's non-OEM Android distro, so, although I can flip the toggle to enable geofencing, hitting the button to SAVE that setting causes an error. The Ecobee has little battery-powered presence sensors though, so I use those to get effectively the same functionality.

[@fragglet]

It's National Burrito Day!

[@BromideBride]

Baby Donkey?

[@SunshineArt]

I think there's a fundamental problem where Google products don't talk to each other so the maps app doesn't talk to your home app to tell it has GPS lock. I have the same problem with the fit app seems to think that about 20 m away from my home I just throw my phone into the bushes it never understands that when I get home and get to my home Wi-Fi that's when it should end the exercise routine not two blocks away. I've been told that it's because the fit app doesn't know where my home is because it's saved in the maps app. (Every single time I do a exercise routine I have to manually go in and edit it to set the end time to another 5 minutes in the future for it to understand that I have actually arrived home and not decided to leave my phone two blocks away}

[@EyeMWing]

This crap's been broken for *YEARS*. Super fun if you try to use it to control your nest thermostat. All indications are that it has never worked.

[@mrgw98]

My notification is also the Jetson's doorbell so that really through me for a loop when I heard that.

[@mlprd]

setup Home Assistant

[@TheAutisticPhilosopher]

This just reminded me of trying to ask Google Maps (via voice while in a vehicle) to navigate to a particular business which was about 20 minutes away (and mostly just a drive down the highway). It heard me correctly according to the on-screen speech-to-text, yet it decided to route me to a city in Pennsylvania with the same name... about a 15-hour drive away. This was in 2023.

[@Blubb3rbub]

I'd guess this happens because the service on your phone that checks location and sends the "we are home" event is only running with a low priority in the background, so it will only rarely get GPS updates from the operating system. 🤔 The Maps app runs in the foreground, so it gets realtime updates.

[@sarahpowell671]

Yeah, my immediate thought was "either the Google Home app or some background service needs battery optimization turned off." I don't think the Android devs and the Google Home devs communicate with each other, because that change to Android's battery settings a couple OSes ago broke several things for me. Turning off battery optimization fixed most of them.

[@jsalsman]

The Google Discord server is surprisingly effective at drawing developer attention to new and longstanding bugs. Their moderators step in and help with such complaints far more likely than the right people will notice a video.

[@TomaMarini]

Time to look into Home Assistant open source project, and forget about Google Home

[@StephenMatrese]

True, but we shouldn't have to

[@ndm13]

As a fellow Google Pixel owner, I implore you to set up Home Assistant. Even if you just use it for automation triggering with presence sensing, it's an infinitely better experience. When I go to work, my phone switches to vibrate. I don't have to think about it, or worry about it thinking I'm somewhere else, it just happens. But it also switches to vibrate when I have an appointment on my calendar, and it turns off the lights when I leave home, and it *sends a notification to my Pixel watch before an alarm goes off*... The quality upgrade is insane, and with community support for myriad devices and services you can probably add anything to it with a few minutes of searching.

[@ndm13]

I may have strayed a bit from my point, but let me sell you on location: I have multiple presence sensors configured. One for GPS with low priority, one for Wifi connection with high priority. Even if my phone disconnects from wifi, Home Assistant can still know that I'm home, just with less confidence. I know what determines its logic because I told it.

[@4luc42d]

Home assistant can do it

[@HDL_CinC_Dragon]

Home Assistant is the best approach for sure.

[@C.I...]

It is my firm belief that the solution to most problems with a system involving a weird, smart-connected-cloud-google thing that broadcasts your location to a multinational tech company all the time is to not use a weird, smart-connected-cloud-google thing that broadcasts your location to a multinational tech company all the time. I used to think Bill Bryson was being comedically facetious when his little Problem/Solution list included the following exchanges satirising his experience of buying a new computer in 1998, but the older I get, the more it seems to ring true: Problem: I keep getting [an error message] Solution: This is probably because you are trying to USE the computer. Turn the computer to "off" mode, and any annoying error messages will disappear! Problem: My computer is a piece of useless junk. Solution: Correct! You are now ready to upgrade to the new model, or to go back to pen & paper.

[@scorinth]

You know, you're right, but you're going to get flamed to hell because "saying a thing that is true but in a way that humorously frames a social ill as an individual person's responsibility" doesn't read as humorous, it reads as being an unhelpful jerk.

[@ThePhantomguy321]

Don't get me wrong, I completely agree with your sentiment. But using the wifi connection solution over location services could actually be a decent solution to the privacy aspect of this problem. And yeah, I know it would still probably be possible to determine location this way (based on what ips are distributed, other user data, etc.) but I'm sure there are ways to obfuscate that other information

[@C.I...]

@@scorinth Yeah! We might rely on computers too much these days - still hope this annoying thing is fixed for those who want to use it. I really love the "This is because you are trying to USE the computer" quote; Takes the bite off to think of that whenever a computer doesn't like me and stops the sunk cost fallacy setting in too far.

[@StefGeiger]

LOVE that you're bringing attention to this. For what it's worth, Ecobee's location tracking is also just as broken and dumb in the exact same ways. Including not being smart enough to use the failsafe of looking at whether your phone is connected to your home network.

[@ravagetalon]

I went Ubiquiti UniFi Protect and never went back.

[@dialga236]

its crazy how these companies literally have our exact location at every single millisecond of every single day whether we like it or not, but we cant even take advantage of the very few perks we would have since the apps that provide the perks DONT WORK.

[@coolbugfacts1234]

I will never use anything but Home Assistant

[@BulmaSoft]

This is my second coming to watch this video, first time when KZbin started auto playing this video on my phone I genuinely thought it was MY PHONE (not the video itself) and my first confused thought and action was to "click" the "stuff" on the screen Lol. That is how much we as the audience are unused to vertical videos on KZbin I guess. By the way I really enjoy your content on both of your channel. Something about the way of your storytelling is really unique and original and I truly like it. Keep up the good work and greetings from Bosnia and Herzegovina

[@minecraftchest1]

I would recommend getting either a HomeAssistant Yellow, or HomeAssistant Green and configuring everything to use that instead. It allows you to make automations that actually work. And it works with most, it not all, of everything you own.

[@abpsd73]

One bug I found with wifi is it will show your "location" as the head office of your ISP

[@The18107j]

Loading Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi was one of the easiest things I've ever done. It was literally just download the default Raspberry Pi OS installer, select Home Assistant, press install. Everything after that was more complicated, but that's only because you can do almost anything you want with it. I have wholesale energy prices and an electric car. There is no commercial service to detect the current price every 5 minutes and choose whether to charge the car or not. So far, I've found 2 open source Home Assistant projects that can automate this, and they're completely customisable.

[@nickloh912]

There’s probably some incredibly specific corner case that they’re covering for that causes this behavior the other 99.9999% of the time. Or perhaps there’s some obscure justification that only they care about. Just like the old version of Android (5.0?) that took away the “silent except alarms” mode. “But silent means silent! Our brains can’t handle such inconsistency!”

[@KarolOfGutovo]

Google tried to lead me down 2 no-entry roads today

[@JonathanRockway]

I self-host home assistant and also suffer from this. My phone doesn't send its location frequently enough, so I always get the "someone has opened your front door" message when I open my own front door. (I used Homekit before this and it was the same situation.) I've given up. I just moved all the automations to buttons on my watch, and press them when necessary. (You can fix this by making the geolocation area larger, but I want the notifications when I go downstairs to do laundry. That's the ideal time to break into my apartment! My Wifi doesn't make it down there, so that would be the perfect algorithm.)

[@yukiqt]

please use Home Assistant