What should I do if iOS 17.3 doesn't recognize my home as a familiar location?

I just learned today that you have to turn on Significant Locations. See About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone - Apple Support and go to the bottom where there is an asterisk that says, "Significant Locations is an option within Location Services: Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > System Services > Significant Locations."

You need to turn on significant locations inside system settings. Go to location services and scroll down to very bottom of this to system settings and toggle on Significant Locations. It should then learn your frequently visited places.

You may be home but your iPhone does not know that. Have you declared the location Home, Work, School, etc on your device?

Add or change your home address in Maps on your iPhone or iPad

1. In the Maps app, scroll to Favourites and tap Add.
2. Start to type the address you want to set as Home or Work, then tap the address when it's available.
3. Scroll down to Type and tap My Home or My Work. ... 
4. Tap Done.

Add or change your home address in Maps on your iPhone or ...

Adding a VPN, can make this far worse for users. VPN on iPhone is SO NOT necessary and for location access, can completely mask where you are actually. I know you're frustrated, but if you use a VPN, it may well be what is causing the location issue for you.

Hello~ Click on and read the User Tip authored by *LD150* as it explains well…

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250007287*

*When at a familiar place (home, work) then only passcode is required with no delay.

The iphone learns your familiar locations from Significant Locations, and you may find that, for recently reset or newly set up phones, you may be restricted at home too until it has established your significant places for that device. Turning off or clearing Significant Locations in Privacy and Security, Location Services, System Services, will turn off Familiar Locations.

~Katana-San~

It works fine for me as I can turn on or off Stolen Device Protection while at home or at work.

Go to Contacts and your contact card should be a the very top of the page. Does it list your home and work address in your own contact card?

或许是地区网络被覆盖了 系统分析不到都会以安全隐私理由来设置一个小时后才能更改资料 在这个时间里 你可以有时间去网络较好的安全地方去以更改 也可以设置系统位置分享把重要地图开启.

I am having the same problem where I am at Home, I have Home as a favorite and it is recognized as a "significant location" in Location services, but trying to turn off Stolen Device isn't recognizing that I am indeed home and forcing me to wait an hour. Looking at the Maps app, it says I am "10 feet away" from "Home", which of course I am and the exact number of feet changes depending on exactly where I am sitting at in my home. I have tried refining the location in Maps but to no avail.

I have read all of the support links listed in all of the and everything is configured correctly that it should know I am at my familiar place at Home...what's wrong??

Hello~ Lots of things in play here. I turned Stolen Device Protection on and off and back on again because I met all of the requirements here as well…

About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone - Apple Support

We have no way of knowing how your device is configured.

~Katana-San~

yes, my iPhone should know its home as its set as home on Apple maps. I commute back here 3-4 times a day and I sleep here every day. Basically, 70% of my day is spent here and when I just went to adjust face ID it puts me on a 1 hour wait because I'm not at a familiar location. being Apple I would have imagined they would have done a better job with the feature before they rolled it out. Also, the fact there is no way to manually add a location is such an obvious oversight.

I’m so not pleased with this location issue. I am home but it has me 25’ away from home and thus requiring the hour before I can change anything. Not cool Apple. At the very least you should be able to set up preferred locations by WiFi. Something…ugh.

Unbelievable that we can't just tell our iphones the familiar location(s) we want. I don't want work to be a familiar location, nor do I want Apple tracking me everywhere (to determine my familiar location(s)). The only sig loc I want is my home. Come on, Apple, be decent.

I have a rural address without postal delivery, Maps is not happy with that. I've tried many times to edit my Home address and 'Refine the location on the Map', but the best it will do still tells me I'm still 5m away! Precise location is turned on, maybe it should be turned off, but that makes less sense.

It's a nightmare trying to use my alternate Apple ID. Previously it was much simpler to Sign out of one Apple ID and then Sign in to my other Apple ID. I'm abroad for long stays and some apps are only available in one region whilst not in another, I use app from both locations. When those apps need updating, I must switch between my Apple IDs.

I’m currently doing that right now. I didn’t know whether to have it on or familiar locations. The only thing that I think would scramble that up is even if you’re at home as if you have a VPN protection

Something in location services is not correct..

besides that I came on here to ask anyone else if they’ve had problems ever since downloading the latest version I lost my pictures to all my text messages. I lost a lot of information and unfortunately, Apple has not been a help whatsoever. They basically say oh you signed a waiver when you came in saying that you know we’re not responsible for Data what’s the point of having iCloud. Furthermore, they only allowed 10 iCloud backups from recent and it doesn’t have one eligible or prior to me going in and seeing them…

Another thing very, very important if people don’t know, I found out the hard way is that our contacts are assigned to our emails.

I have thousands of contacts in my Emails, Gmail, yahoo, etc.

If you happen to have a email on your phone or your device, they have the legal authority apparently to take all those contacts and strip them away as if you never ever had them.

When I went in the store, I asked them to and they all and we updated you to the to the most recent iOS. Well, I never do that at least three weeks.

To find out what all the problems are what everyone is experiencing, and then I decide whether I wanna update or not.

Excellent it’s I’m ready to buy a different device. I’m so upset with them. They are not calling me back. They used to call me back to never wait a long time. Said they were engineers and give me a call back. They never called. It’s just.

And I would highly suggest if anyone has AT&T to download or which carrier you have download the VPN protection it’s like $2.99 a month or something not much.

On AT&T, it’s called active armor.

I’m not sure what is going on what I do know is that my neighbor lost all her messages and pictures with her messages as well during that last update then the whole AT&T outage they had a breach when that happened

Here I am stating my firm intention to leave Apple and become an Android user, if Apple doesn’t resolve this issue within 30 days.

Do you want to state / write the same?

A…

I think Apple knows perfectly what they are doing, and that you are naive by stating:  

- “Come on, Apple, be decent”

- “ Come on Apple this is ridiculous”,  

- “ Unbelievable that we can't just tell our iphones the familiar location(s) we want”

B…

Access to clients location and privacy DOES bring business benefits….. all other technical excuses are only distractors. Technical support cannot overcome board of directors business policy.

If WILLING, Apple can remove those impediments instantly. IT IS ABOUT WILL.

Only the power of market, (organized clients) can overturn the business policy by stating publicly a massive intention to go to another phone manufacturer…. But this is an APPLE CONTROLLED FORUM, and my opinion will be banned soon, for Apple business convenience.

.

Remember the WhatsApp Pitfall that caused massive migration to Telegram? … and the behemoth of Whatsapp had to step back?

C…

Even using a VPN, and disabling all location options, and Stolen Device Protection: 

The waiting time will be triggered by having an empty familiar location list.

IF YOU DONT WANT TO WAIT, YOU MUST SURRENDER YOUR LOCATION ($) and in addition depend on Apple efficacy to populate it.

1…Having a rural address, or a mobile address on boat or RV, or using a VPN, is a right for citizens, as well as privacy.

2…Using an alternative ID, using networks abroad, updating foreign apps, or sharing your device with other Apple ID users is legit and allowed.

3…An hour wait is an eternity when loosing a plane or a train….Limiting the free use of private property, as YOUR device, shall not be done by any corporation.