Track Your Parking Location in Home Assistant

In our household, we have two cars available. Our main car is a Kia EV6, which is integrated into our smart home through the Kia Connect Integration. The other car is a Kia Picanto from December 2020. It’s an excellent vehicle for short trips, yet it lacks the smart mobility functionality that’s available in our EV6.

In this guide, we’ll see how you can still track the parking location of a car like the Picanto, even though it doesn’t share its location automatically.

What You’ll Need

• Bluetooth connection with your car
• The Home Assistant Companion app (Android / iOS) installed on your phone

Why Track Your Parking Location?

Although it lacks built-in smart features, it’s always interesting to explore ways to make your “dumb” car a part of your home automation setup. After browsing online resources, I came across a clever approach: capturing the phone’s location the moment your Bluetooth disconnects from the car. This essentially marks where you parked.

Here’s how to set it up.

Tip: If you want to track the parking location for multiple drivers, you’ll need to repeat these steps for each person’s phone.

Step 1 – Tell Home Assistant Which Bluetooth Connections Are Available

• Open the Home Assistant Companion app on your smartphone.
• Go to App Configuration > Sensors.
• Search for “Bluetooth,” then find and enable the Bluetooth Connections sensor.
• After enabling, a sensor named something like sensor.<your_device>_bluetooth_connection will appear. This sensor shows all connected Bluetooth devices.

Step 2 – Create a Template Sensor That Detects Connection to Your Car

Next, create a template sensor in Home Assistant to detect whether your phone is connected to the car’s Bluetooth.

Here’s an example configuration. Be sure to replace the MAC address and device name with your actual details:

- platform: template
  sensors:
    picanto_bluetooth_peter:
      friendly_name: "Picanto Bluetooth (Peter)"
      value_template: >-
        {{
          'XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX (Kia Motors)'
          in state_attr('sensor.phone_peter_bluetooth_connection', 'connected_paired_devices')
        }}
      icon_template: mdi:car

- platform: template
  sensors:
    picanto_bluetooth_peter:
      friendly_name: "Picanto Bluetooth (Peter)"
      value_template: >-
        {{
          'XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX (Kia Motors)'
          in state_attr('sensor.phone_peter_bluetooth_connection', 'connected_paired_devices')
        }}
      icon_template: mdi:car

Step 3 – Create an Automation to Save the Parking Location When Bluetooth Disconnects

This automation triggers when your phone disconnects from the car, recording your GPS location at that moment:

- id: car_parking_location_picanto
  alias: "Auto: Parkeerlocatie Picanto"
  initial_state: 'on'
  trigger:
    - platform: state
      entity_id: sensor.picanto_bluetooth_peter
      from: "True"
      to: "False"
  action:
    - service: device_tracker.see
      data:
        dev_id: picanto
        gps:
          - "{{ state_attr('device_tracker.phone_peter', 'latitude') }}"
          - "{{ state_attr('device_tracker.phone_peter', 'longitude') }}"

- id: car_parking_location_picanto
  alias: "Auto: Parkeerlocatie Picanto"
  initial_state: 'on'
  trigger:
    - platform: state
      entity_id: sensor.picanto_bluetooth_peter
      from: "True"
      to: "False"
  action:
    - service: device_tracker.see
      data:
        dev_id: picanto
        gps:
          - "{{ state_attr('device_tracker.phone_peter', 'latitude') }}"
          - "{{ state_attr('device_tracker.phone_peter', 'longitude') }}"

This creates or updates the device_tracker.picanto entity with your most recent parked location.

Optional – Update the Location Periodically While Connected

If you also want to update the car’s location every 5 minutes while it’s connected (e.g., for live tracking), you can use this optional automation:

- id: car_location_picanto_update
  alias: "Auto: Update Locatie Picanto"
  initial_state: 'on'
  trigger:
    - platform: time_pattern
      minutes: "/5"
  condition:
    - condition: state
      entity_id: sensor.picanto_bluetooth_peter
      state: "True"
  action:
    - service: device_tracker.see
      data:
        dev_id: picanto
        gps:
          - "{{ state_attr('device_tracker.phone_peter', 'latitude') }}"
          - "{{ state_attr('device_tracker.phone_peter', 'longitude') }}"

- id: car_location_picanto_update
  alias: "Auto: Update Locatie Picanto"
  initial_state: 'on'
  trigger:
    - platform: time_pattern
      minutes: "/5"
  condition:
    - condition: state
      entity_id: sensor.picanto_bluetooth_peter
      state: "True"
  action:
    - service: device_tracker.see
      data:
        dev_id: picanto
        gps:
          - "{{ state_attr('device_tracker.phone_peter', 'latitude') }}"
          - "{{ state_attr('device_tracker.phone_peter', 'longitude') }}"

This ensures you always have the latest approximate position while driving.

Conclusion

With just a few simple automations, you can give even a basic car some “smart” functionality. Tracking your parking location can save you time and frustration, and it’s a great example of how Home Assistant empowers you to get creative with automation.

If you have questions or want to share your own approaches to smart car tracking, feel free to leave a comment!