Prior art
Checked October 2026. The question: can an agent ask a phone for its current location, on demand, through an open-source stack you host yourself?
| Project | Phone app | On-demand ping | Self-hosted server | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commit451/phonehome-agent | Yes, closed source | Yes, end-to-end encrypted | No — hosted API | Only the agent CLI/MCP is open. |
| OwnTracks | Yes, open source | Yes, reportLocation cmd, MQTT only (docs) | Yes (MQTT broker / Recorder) | No agent API; the MCP bridges below do not use the ping. |
| de-niji/OwnTracksHermes, danielsuguimoto/location-tracker, michelgrolet/tars-location-mcp | OwnTracks | No — read the last pushed fix | Yes | Passive history, not "where are you now". |
| Location MCP Server | No | — | — | Reads the computer's location, not the phone's. |
Why Whereabouts
No open-source project found gives the full path agent → own relay → ping phone → fresh fix. Whereabouts does it with one Rust binary and one Tauri app. How it works: architecture.