Icon colors of device_tracker entities

[Youpimatin]

Checklist

• I have updated to the latest available Home Assistant version.
• I have cleared the cache of my browser.
• I have tried a different browser to see if it is related to my browser.

The problem

Icon color changing with state doesn't work for device_tracker entities.

('Present' is 'Home', 'Absent' is 'Not home')

Expected behavior

I expected the same result as with switches, icon yellow when the device is online and blue when it isn't.

Steps to reproduce

• configure nmap tracker in 'configuration.yaml'
• configure devices in 'known_devices.yaml'
• Add a card 'Entities' or 'Glance' to a panel
• Add a device 'device_tracker.xxx'
• Check 'Color icons based on state ?'

Environment

• Home Assistant release with the issue: 0.116.4
• Last working Home Assistant release (if known):
• Browser and browser version: Firefox 81.0.2 (64 bits)
• Operating system: Windows 7 Pro x64 SP1

State of relevant entities

Entity:
device_tracker.cellphone1

State:
Home

source_type: router
latitude: x.x
longitude: x.x
gps_accuracy: 0
scanner: NmapDeviceScanner
ip: 192.168.1.25
friendly_name: Someone's phone
icon: 'mdi:cellphone-android'

Problem-relevant configuration

'configuration.yaml' :

device_tracker:
  - platform: nmap_tracker
    hosts:
      - 192.168.1.1 # Router
      - 192.168.1.20-50 # DHCP
    interval_seconds: 50
    consider_home: 150
    home_interval: 2

'known_devices.yaml' :

Someone's phone:
  icon: mdi:cellphone-android
  mac: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
  name: Someone's phone
  picture:
  track: true

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Additional information

[Youpimatin]

Similar feature request : #6605

Related feature request : #5040

[broyuken]

Agreed, this is a bug that should be fixed.

[iantrich]

This is not abug, but a feature request

[Youpimatin]

I don't mean to be hurtful or disrespectful, and I'm just going to express a point of view :)

• If I create a button "Color icons based on state ?" (this feature already exists)

&&

• If this button doesn't work (or it doesn't work in some cases)

I think anyone will tell me "there is a bug"

(Aside from that I can understand if this is not a priority or if i'ts too difficult, but I don't understand why the BUG flag was removed)

[broyuken]

I agree with the bug label. If this feature doesn’t fully work as intended it is a bug. Device trackers do not change color based on state like all other entities do.

[thomasloven]

The feature as it is now is that things that consume power indicate that through color. Device trackers do not use power the way a switch or light does, and therefore does not change color.

Changing that behavior is indeed a feature request rather than a bug, but that's hard to know if you're not privy to the inner workings of hass - and honestly doesn't matter in this context anyway.

[Youpimatin]

OK, I understand the power consumption concern.
(even if window shutters are yellow when open, but... don't consume power in this state :D pun intended)

Is there a simple way to customise home assistant to get to this result ?

[thomasloven]

shutters are yellow when open

There's also some reasoning about sunlight or something... I won't pretend to either understand or fully agree with the scheme.

[iantrich]

That was the initial intent but it has expanded beyond power/sun per @SeanPM5 great explanation below

[Youpimatin]

Makes sense. (don't get me wrong I like them yellow when open)

Thanks for the clarification

[SeanPM5]

The idea was for icon coloring to spotlight entities that might require attention. Often (but not always) this equates to the "on" state. For example, a binary sensor being on might mean you have a window or door left open, or motion was detected, etc. Those are important things you'd want to know about and have colored.

But devices simply being on your home network don't really require attention drawn to them, because that's the normal expected state. The majority of devices on your network probably never leave home (with the main exception being cell phones). So the fear is that you'd end up with dozens of always yellow icons and then nothing would grab your attention because yellow would become the unintentional "default" color.

I think that it might be better to only color device trackers that are away. Those are the ones that deserve attention - did some critical device go offline? Did your child sneak out of the house with their phone? Stuff like that makes sense to color and draw attention to, but I don't think my printer device_tracker entity should always have a yellow icon simply for existing...

But I can see arguments the other way too for coloring "home" state. The reason this hasn't been implemented before is there was no consensus on this.

[EricJanOud]

Looking in the history of any device tracker, I see different colours in the history bar for the tracker being in different zones (different "states", I guess).
Would it be an idea to colour the icon according to those colours? That is: any colour for different locations, like "Away", "Work", "School", "Mum and Dad's", etc...
Just the same colours that are already picked to colour the history bar? They must be defined somewhere already...
Or maybe set a colour in the definition of a zone, if the user wants to keep them constant over time.

Just an idea, to maybe trigger other ideas ;)

[fanaticDavid]

Personally, I would take it a step further and suggest letting users customize device_tracker entities with device_class: connectivity. In my personal use case, that would address 2 issues:

• these entities would get an icon color based on their state
• these entities would show a connected/ disconnected state instead of home/ away

At the moment, I use template-entity-row to achieve this. Before that, I used to make a template binary sensor for most of my devices so I could customize those with the device_class above, resulting in quite a few duplicate entities.

[broyuken]

any movement on this? I really like the idea of the device_class: connectivity for device_trackers