Add attributes to mqtt siwtches/lights

[qbus_r (Jakub Radziwon)]

Hi,
I have simple mqtt lights and switches controlled from HA by arduino mega + w5100 shield. On arduino I have simple program which subscribes to certain topic and switches on/off relay switch.

My light can be triggered by pushbutton or motion sensor (both mqtt sensor in HA) - automation is done by my AppDaemon script. I would like to set additional attributes (which would be updated by AppDaemon) to my light/switch such as :

• triggered_by : with values push button or motion
• timer_active: true/false

How can I do this ?

[123 (Taras)]

@qbus_r

I would like to set additional attributes

I believe this is what you will need to use: JSON Attributes topic configuration

[qbus_r (Jakub Radziwon)]

Hi, I haven’t tried this yet - will it give me attributes I can see in Dev-state card or in entity property ? And additionally, those attributes will have nothing to do with my Arduino controller, so they do not have to be mqtt related. what I want is just to be able to get attribute from given switch, not new extra template sensor or whatever which I would have to hardcode/pass to appdaemon script or hass gui somehow.

[123 (Taras)]

@qbus_r

those attributes will have nothing to do with my Arduino controller, so they do not have to be mqtt related.

You tagged this thread with MQTT and stated you had “simple mqtt lights and switches” so naturally I was led to believe you wanted a way to do it that involves MQTT Lights, Switches, Sensors, etc. They have the ability to be assigned custom attributes via their json_attributes topic.

I’m not familiar with AppDaemon’s capabilities but I’ll wager it can call mqtt.publish to post updates to json_attributes. However, if you don’t want to use MQTT publishing and prefer to create new attributes, and write to them, using AppDaemon … I don’t know how to do that. You may wish to search the AppDaemon category for a solution. I found this thread which may be relevant:

Setting custom attribute to a device doesn't persist?

I’m trying to set some info in a device custom attribute however it doesn’t seem to persist? When I read from that device afterwards, or check in homeassistant states I don’t see it there. I used to do this in Vera (before it died) to save some persistent state relevant to the device. Q1 - Is this possible? Should you able to persist a custom attribute? Q2 - If yes, why doesn’t this code below work? Am I missing something? Q3 - Is there a limitation in terms of the type of devices you can…

[qbus_r (Jakub Radziwon)]

Thank you, will read post you gave.
I marked mqtt as what i would like to have (actually what I think I would like to have) is to configure mqtt switch, and then somehow add some attributes to this entity which would be only controlled by HA/AppDaemon. I imagine it would look like (pseudocode):

• platform: mqtt
  Command topic : some topic
  State topic : some other topic
  Name : name
  Extra attributes:
  • name : last_switched_by
    Default : none
    Type: text/int/boolean
  • name : timer_active
    …