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Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstallUse the Home Assistant Companion app when you want your phone or tablet to provide Home Assistant with location, device sensors, or app-linked notifications. Use a web browser when you simply need to open the Home Assistant frontend and control your setup. You can also use both: the app can provide device integrations while you open dashboards in whichever interface suits you.
What’s the difference?
The Companion app connects Home Assistant to your device
The Companion app is more than a way to display the Home Assistant frontend. Depending on the platform and permissions, it can report device information such as battery and network status, provide location updates through a device_tracker entity, and receive Home Assistant notifications. These integrations let the device itself contribute data or actions to your setup.
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A browser opens the Home Assistant frontend
A browser is a practical choice when your goal is to access the frontend—such as viewing dashboards or controlling devices—and you do not need the mobile integrations described below. Official documentation explains the app’s capabilities but does not provide a complete, current browser-versus-app feature matrix. That means it does not establish that every frontend task behaves identically in both.
Choose based on what you want the device to do
| Your need | Better fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Open the Home Assistant frontend and control your setup | Browser, or Companion app | Either can provide frontend access; the documentation does not establish complete feature parity. |
| Use the device’s location for presence or automations | Companion app | The app can provide location updates and create a device_tracker entity, subject to permissions and platform behavior. |
| Use phone or tablet sensors, such as battery or network status | Companion app | The app can expose device sensors. Available features vary across Android, iOS, and macOS. |
| Receive app-linked push or actionable notifications | Companion app | Its notification platform supports registered devices and actionable notifications. |
| Keep device integrations while choosing a convenient way to view dashboards | Both | Use the app for its integrations and open the frontend in the interface that suits the task. |
What the app adds on mobile
Location and presence
The app can send location updates to Home Assistant, which can use them for presence-based automations. Location reporting is controlled by permissions and app settings: the available choices include exact location, zone name only, and never or disabled. Zone-name-only reporting can support presence without sending GPS coordinates.
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Home Assistant’s Companion documentation says location data is sent directly to configured Home Assistant instances or through Home Assistant Cloud, depending on the URLs configured, and is not sent through other servers or organizations. That is the documentation’s description of its data flow; what the app can report still depends on the permissions you grant and your settings.
Device sensors
Sensor availability depends on the operating system. The official feature overview separates Android, iOS, and macOS capabilities, so check the entry for your actual device rather than assuming that a sensor or integration is available everywhere.
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Do not treat sensor data as a guaranteed live feed. On iOS, updates can occur when location changes, while the app is in the foreground, through background updates scheduled by iOS, or after a manual or notification-triggered update. The timing of background updates is determined by iOS, so continuous or instant updates are not assured.
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Notifications and links
The app’s notification platform supports registered devices and actionable notifications. A notification can open a relative Home Assistant URL or a full URL when tapped, which is useful for directing you to a relevant frontend page.
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Permissions and platform-specific trade-offs
Android location access
For Android background location updates, the setup guide calls for “Allow all the time” location access and nearby-devices permission. Grant those permissions only if the location-based behavior you want requires them; you can choose not to enable location reporting.
Location choices and privacy
If location permission is withheld or removed, the app sends no location data. You can also choose zone-name-only reporting instead of exact coordinates, or disable location data. Those settings let you decide whether location-based features are worth the information you share.
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Android widgets
Android widgets are an app capability, not a general measure of app-versus-browser speed. The documentation says widgets update every 30 minutes by default while the screen is on. More frequent updates may require notification access and can affect battery life.
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteCan you use both?
Yes. You can keep the Companion app for notifications, device data, or presence while using a browser when that is the more convenient way to open the frontend. The app’s URL handling can open frontend deep links, so a notification or other app-provided link can take you to a relevant page.
What the documentation does not establish
The official pages describe app features and platform-specific behavior, but they do not provide a comprehensive browser-versus-app comparison. They also do not benchmark speed, reliability, or overall performance. Choose according to the integrations you need and the interface that works for your frontend access, rather than assuming one option is universally faster or that every task is identical across them.
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