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Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →To control what appears on the Home Assistant map, configure the Map card’s entities and geolocation sources; to change presence behavior, configure zones and device trackers separately. Hiding a marker is not the same as turning off tracking. Home Assistant’s documented settings explain these display and presence controls, but do not establish broad guarantees about location-data retention, security, or external disclosure.
What the Home Assistant map shows
The Map card can display the home zone, selected entities, configured zones, and geolocation sources. Entities may include device trackers, people, and other entities with location coordinates. Home Assistant’s built-in Map dashboard uses this card. Map card documentation and dashboard documentation describe the display.
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Map display, zone state, and tracking source are separate things. A marker’s visibility is controlled through the map configuration; a tracker’s state depends on its source and active zones; and the source integration determines what location or connection information Home Assistant receives.
Configure the Map card
Open the Map card configuration, add the entities you want to display, and add geolocation sources if needed. Card configuration also provides options for labels and the map’s default focus. UI wording can shift between Home Assistant releases, so the exact label may differ.
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- Labels: The card documentation describes label modes for names, icons, states, or attributes. Attribute and unit display can also be configured where applicable.
- Default focus: For sources, setting focus to false keeps their entities from determining the map’s default zoom or fit. This changes initial framing, not whether a tracker is operating.
- Nearby markers: Use the map control to toggle clustering of markers close together.
- Viewport: Reset the map view to fit displayed entities when you want to return to the overall view.
- Location trace: Set the card’s “Hours to show” time frame to view a trace of past entity locations. This is a display-history setting; the documentation does not define it as a general data-retention control.
Show or hide zones on the map
Zones are geographic regions—such as home, work, or school—that support presence detection and automations. Create or edit custom zones at Settings > Areas, labels & zones > Zones. Give each zone a name and icon, set its coordinates and radius, and enter GPS coordinates or adjust its position on the map. See the zone documentation.
A non-home zone can be set to Passive. The documentation says a passive zone is hidden from the frontend and is not used to determine device-tracker state, but it remains available to automations. Passive is not available for the home zone. If zone settings or general settings were defined in YAML, the documentation notes they cannot be edited through the UI.
How the home zone differs
Home Assistant creates the home zone during onboarding with a default radius of 100 m. It cannot be deleted, and its icon is fixed. Devices inside the home zone do not appear on the Home Assistant UI map, even though their location may determine that they are home. The zone’s location is also used by location-based integrations such as Sun.
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To change the home marker’s position or radius, go to Settings > System > Home information and edit the location on the map. Changing the home location does not automatically change the unit system or time zone. The Home information documentation covers this setting.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How device tracking and people work
A device tracker can report coordinates—latitude and longitude, optionally with GPS accuracy—or indicate presence based on connection to a fixed device such as a router or Bluetooth beacon. Its state reflects the smallest active zone it occupies, “Home” when in the home zone, or “Not home” when outside active zones. See the device tracker documentation.
A person entity lets you associate one or more trackers with a person. The person can appear on the map and be used in automations. A person is not the same as a Home Assistant user account: someone can be tracked without a login, and an account does not have to represent a tracked person. The person documentation explains the association.
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Choose a phone or network-based tracking source
Home Assistant documents phone-based location through the Companion App and network-based presence detection through supported routers. Which behavior is available depends on the integration and the tracker entities it provides; the documentation does not give a quantified accuracy comparison or a privacy comparison between these approaches.
| Source | What it can provide | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Phone and Companion App | Phone location can provide coordinates. | Enable location tracking while connecting the app. After the Mobile App integration connects, select the person’s tracker and use the Map dashboard to view its location. |
| Router or other fixed-device presence | Presence based on connection to a fixed device; it does not necessarily provide a GPS position. | Behavior depends on the supported integration and the tracker entities it exposes. |
For the documented phone workflow, follow the presence detection guide. For router-based detection, support depends on the particular integration.
What the settings do—and do not—establish about privacy
The documented controls let you choose map entities and geolocation sources, adjust labels and default focus, and set how many hours of trace the card displays. Making a zone passive hides it from the frontend and excludes it from device-tracker state while leaving it available to automations. These describe display and presence behavior; they are not a complete privacy model.
The official pages cited here do not establish a general guarantee about location-data retention, external disclosure, or security. Removing an entity from the map is not evidence that its tracker stopped collecting or reporting location. Likewise, the “Hours to show” setting controls the card’s displayed trace, not a documented retention period. To stop a source from providing location, investigate that tracker’s integration and the source app’s permissions rather than treating map visibility as a collection control.
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