Schwim DandyAny self-hosted option for real time location sharing?
artyom
CorrectAliasHA has it built in, you don’t need to use any integration other than the built in mobile app integration.
Dust0741I have been using Hauk for ages. Not the most advanced or modern, but works like a charm! github.com/bilde2910/Hauk
Do you know if it works well with GrapheneOS?
Does it use http or MQTT?
I was using Traccar and that worked well until moving to GOS and then background updates wouldn’t work.
I tried owntrack and nextcloud but never got it to work.
ᛒᛚᚢᛖᛇᚦᛖᚱ (BlueÆther)Dawarich and Reitti are the two I know of. tested both around a year ago, but not used really since then
AmbiguousPropsI use Home Assistant for this. It works very well and the data is all local. It’s probably a bit heavy if you don’t use the other parts of home assistant though.
HominineDo you know if it works well with GrapheneOS?
Does it use http or MQTT?
I was using Traccar and that worked well until moving to GOS and then background updates wouldn’t work.
I tried owntrack and nextcloud but never got it to work.
danDoes it use http or MQTT?
Home Assistant uses HTTP for this. Realistically, you won’t see much difference between HTTP and MQTT for this use case.
MQTT is harder to secure than HTTP, and has some limitations (eg it normally only supports username and password auth - no SSO, no 2FA) so I’d avoid it for anything public-facing unless you have a specific reason to use it. Using it via a VPN is fine, but you’d still need to configure a separate MQTT username and password per user.
It uses http, and yes, it works perfectly on GrapheneOS.
Home Assistant location doesn’t quite play nice with GOS. My wife and I have been looking for a Life360 replacement ourselves. She runs Graphene, and it’ll grab location periodically, but it’s not consistent.
Do you use persistent connection? Both myself and my partner use GOS and it works fine, and updates frequently. You might also be able to change the pull rate as well.
I want to say I enabled it, but I’ll have to check again.
Does it affect the battery usage much by increasing the poll rate?
I think it could drain battery depending on what settings you tweak. However, I don’t have terrible battery drain. Here’s all of my settings that could be related:
With those settings, I get pretty frequent updates to my location, especially while driving (likely because I plug my phone in while in the car)
So we took a look trying to figure out why her phone wasn’t giving HA a consistent location… She likes to turn off the camera/mic/location killswitches 😂
Quick fix haha, but at least we know that Graphene is doing the thing that it’s known to do!
Haha, glad you figured it out!
Faceman🇦🇺yep.
Sure it’s not as good as a FOSS service but it has proven to be trustworthy, and it’s something a lot of us already run so why add an extra service for a function we already have.
gedaliyahHome Assistant isn’t FOSS? How?
Sorry, misworded that, I meant it isn’t as good as a dedicated self hosted FOSS tracking service. meaning HA has access to my location data but i’ve also put lots of third party addons and integrations into HA that have to be trusted with access to that information too.
A dedicated service would be a bit easier for peace of mind as it would be isolated.
Dev of reitti here 👋
Reitti allows sharing data like live location between users. If you use the owntracks app, you would even see all users, which share their location woth you, directly in the app.
Else you can see them in reitti directly with their latest known location.
Do you know if it works well with GrapheneOS?
Does it use http or MQTT?
I was using Traccar and that worked well until moving to GOS and then background updates wouldn’t work.
I tried owntrack and nextcloud but never got it to work.
You can get data via HTTP into reitti. Registering reitti on a MQTT broker also works.
I am using the OwnTracks app on Graphene OS via http and it’s working well so far, but I only set it up very recently.
I installed with obtanium and it doesn’t need any play services, Graphene’s location service works fine.
I am using a different back end though, GeoPulse not Reitti. Still evaluating the different choices, I will probably try Reitti as well.
I’m trying this out right now. I’ve been using dawarch but it still has some ironing out to do.
FYI, the wget command pulled the github web page HTML where the file is hosted instead of the file itself. Weird. Easy fix but I’m guessing that’s a GitHub issue.
Thank you for the info. I will check the command.
I fixed the link and it should be resolved in a couple of minutes. I used the wrong one and never tested that command.
Thank you for coming back with that. That really helps :)
No problem. By the way, this is a HUGE improvement over dawarich IMO. On my system, it just works extremely smoothly and connecting it with other services worked seamlessly.
I’m now using OwnTracks on mobile, and it was easy to connect to Immich and see my photos on the timeline. This is great! Thanks for sharing it.
I am happy to hear that.
I’ve been following reitti for some time. Happily surprised to see you on Lemmy :)
Didn’t knew it allowed live location sharing, thanks for the info.
I try to be active on both. Reddit has the reach, but I like the vibe of this community on Lemmy. It is so much calmer and friendlier.
Over the last year, the community came up with some awesome ideas I incorporated into Reitti. It is easy to miss some of them. I try to add as much documentation as possible, but it is, on one side, hard to anticipate how users search for features and, on the other, not to miss some of them over time. Maybe it is a good idea to take some time and add all missing stuff since I am wrapping up the 5.0 release.
If I remember correctly, data sharing came as a suggestion on my first post here on Lemmy. Over the last year, I refined that, and now users on the same instance can share their data. You are even able to connect to users on other instances of Reitti and finally share your data via magic links.
I am really thankful for all the support Reitti gets, and the ideas of our users make a difference in how it is coming along.
ElementX (main mobile matrix client) has live location sharing that works in group chats. Be aware that any location sharing system that loads map data (tiles) from a server automatically leaks your location to that server. The only way to solve this would be to have all the map tiles required stored offline but I’m not aware of any solution that does this. The simplest way to achieve maximum privacy is to just have something that automatically shares just the coordinates as a text message at a regular interval then you can open those coordinates in an offline map app.
As you can see here, the map tiles are loaded from “MapLibre” when using ElementX or rather its cool fork SchildiChatNext. That means MapLibre would technically know roughly where you are and have been. All apps that dont prompt you to download large chunks of map data in advance will load map tiles on demand and expose your location.
Phonetrack for nextcloud. apps.nextcloud.com/apps/phonetrack
I recommend the Colota app for tracking. I use a mix of Reitti and Dawarich at the moment to log the info (both of which support sharing) as I can’t work out which I prefer.
ubergeek77I use Traccar, at least on Android the tracker is set and forget, and the web app can be installed as a PWA for easy viewing of all devices. Admin interface is a little clunky, but when you get it set up it works great.
I use paralino on grapheneOS. I have been using it for a year or so. You can have groups like family or friends and create locations so you can get alerts when someone leaves or arrives. There is a subscription fee but it isn’t a lot and only one person needs to buy it. Everything is end to end encrypted and only exists between the devices. There isn’t a central server storing your data. I would rather self host something but at the time I wasn’t prepared to do it and now it just works for me.
This is an absolute gem and I thank you very much for the suggestion. I’m in the same boat as you and will happily pay them until I decide to handle the backend myself.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters Git Popular version control system, primarily for code MQTT Message Queue Telemetry Transport point-to-point networking NAS Network-Attached Storage SSO Single Sign-On VPN Virtual Private Network[Thread #15 for this comm, first seen 16th Jun 2026, 00:30] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
rakoIf not hosting anything is ok for you, deltachat allows you to share locations to people in a chat. It’s fully e2ee. You can use it with existing relays, but if you want you can host one that will be useful to everyone: https://chatmail.at/
my wife and i use owntracks for address now. it’s a pretty easy setup, bit can be expended at will. the confusing part at the beginning is just that there is no actual “owntracks server”.
what you do is: set up a mqtt server, of you don’t have one already (e.g. mosquitto) and install the owntracks app on the devices.
I literally set this up yesterday. I already have Nextcloud, so I installed the PhoneTrack app for that. PhoneTrack app on my Android, and Traccar on my wife’s iPhone. For her to view locations, she has to log in to Nextcloud in a browser. I bookmarked it and pinned it to her home screen.
We just use home Assistant. It works great.
Appoxo
u_tamtamTo add to the collection of chat apps enabling that, there is XMPP, too: f-droid.org/en/packages/de.monocles.chat/
