On restart my Athom Presence Sensor takes 6 seconds for the device to reappear as active and report the state of the sensors. Something is wrong if it takes a minute. There are many ESPHome threads on peoples battles with networking.
Thanks for the tip!
@sparkydave and @juliandh, I figured out the issue… my Athom PS01 sensors were taking a long time to connect (again) because of my wireless network. It’s a mesh system with a router (base) unit and a node (satellite) downstairs. Last night I unplugged a PS01 to move a cord and when I plugged it back in, it still didn’t connect after 30 minutes!!! I had to go to sleep but when I woke up this morning I did some troubleshooting.
I’m fairly certain the PS01 was bouncing back and forth between the two units (base and satellite) and for some reason was not able to “sync up” with one or the other. I tried setting DHCP IP reservations and binding the PS01s (forcing them) to connect to the router which is on the same level/floor, but that didn’t seem to help. It would still take a long time to connect (as you both noted it should only take seconds).
Anyway I saw this morning in Home Assistant that the PS01 finally connected last night after more than an hour of being unavailable… unacceptable. I got an old WiFi extender out of the closet, and set it up on a different network (acting as an extender/repeater for the existing wireless network). Next I updated the secrets file for the PS01s with the new WiFi network & password, reinstalled the YAML for both of them, and voila, then came online within 10 seconds. I have since done several power cycle tests and they came back online within 4 seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds and 7 seconds. This is much faster than when I was using the mesh network.
I have had other issues with the mesh system (it’s ASUS, and it sucks). I will never use ASUS again! I should have checked this right away but it’s been so long since I had a wireless issue at the house that I didn’t think of it. Thanks for all the guidance and suggestions to this point… really appreciate the help.
Glad to hear you found the real issue.
I use Ubiquiti UniFi and it’s brilliant. Definitely worth the upgrade.
Thanks! Once project work slows down a bit I need to tackle changing the wireless network. I’ve tried Netgear, Linksys & ASUS and all have had one problem or another.
I think it’s time to consider other brands like Ubiquiti. Good to hear you have had a great experience with it.
Regarding this - are lines 120 to 125 to remove the blue light still the correct lines in Feb 2024?
I also want to be able to hide my SSID again. Which wifi setting do i need to disable/enable so ESP can connect to my hidden SSID?
Thanks
Hi @bmac6996, I’m not an expert but here’s my thinking. Upon review of athom_ps01.yaml on Blakadder’s ESPHome Configurations, I think lines 114-119 could be commented out. I noted lines 99-101 are also already commented out, and they also have to do with turning on the led. Hope that helps.
@JulianDH or anyone else reading this, do you have any thoughts on this?
Screenshot of the yaml, with lines 114-119 highlighted.
I think that is absolutely right. I will probably turn off my LED as well. Note: my line numbering is different as we might have all used different WiFi /system settings.
Thanks @JulianDH ! Incidentally, I loaded the yaml file from Blakadder’s site into NotePad++ on Windows, and those are the line numbers it showed. Just to explain how those line numbers were determined in my above screenshot.
BTW maybe I am in the minority, but I like the blue LED light. It’s a nice indication that the presence is working and it’s not terribly obtrusive (though I have the sensor mounted behind me in a room, so I am not staring at it).
By contrast, the linptech/Moes presence sensor is very annoying. Here’s a good review of it: https://smarthomescene.com/reviews/moes-linptech-presence-sensor-zss-lp-hp02-review/ The issue is that the linptech has a bright blue light that flashes every 5 seconds or so, and there’s no way to disable it (at least, not that I can find in ZHA). I ended up covering the light with some electrical tape.
I installed the linptech before I set up a 2nd coordinator w/Zigbee2MQTT, so I haven’t bothered to try to move it from ZHA to Zigbee2MQTT. Right now I am using the linptech as a basic sensor for a room, so I don’t need to adjust any settings really. Good thing, because in ZHA you only get a single entity that indicates if there is presence or not.
I plan to use Zigbee2MQTT for all new Zigbee sensors/devices I use with Home Assistant from now on.
@bmac6996, I missed the other question in your earlier post. For connecting to a hiddden SSID looks like you need to include the fast_connect option in the yaml config. You could review these resources for more info.
So I’m in a similar or on the same boat as you when you first asked the question in this thread.
Actually … probably worse as I have no idea how ESPHome, ESP32, ESP based devices but I still bought them - Athom PS01 - about 4 of them. I initially bought like 2 a few months ago and I just followed what Athom suggested and it worked ever since. Integrated in HA and been using it without issues using the default settings and never really tweaked it as it is was not needed.
So I bought another two and I received it a few days ago and I’ve been setting it up, but this time, I would need to change the settings as it will placed in an area that really can’t work with the default settings, it is just too sensitive.
Changing the settings seem to work, but as soon as you unplug the device and put it back online – it goes back to default PS01 settings! These are both devices! I also tried it on my first two devices and did the same thing. So I ended up in this thread with fear of bricking the device and not doing the right thing.
Due to my ignorance to ESPHome in general, I never even installed the ESPHome dashboard. I just had an “ESPHome” in home assistant which shows the devices in HA. I didn’t know they were different.
The ESPHome shows the devices and the versions of ESPHome firmware installed I guess, which are Firmware: 2023.6.3, 2023.5.5 - so I already see a discrepancy and I have the urge of updating it to the best version or the latest version.
But this is where my confusion continues, is there a different Firmware version of the Athom Presence sensor itself or is just the ESP device I just need to update? Or do I have to do both?
So as per your post – I installed the ESPHome Dashboard, I see two discovered devices and there is an “Adopt” button.
First question is why is it only showing 2 of the 4. They are all in the same VLAN and should be good so I might be missing something. So hopefully I figure this out.
But from what I understand from you post:
- Installed ESPHome Dashboard and click Adopt and Let it do its thing
- After being adopted, click EDIT and put in the “Blakadder” improved config, make sure IP is set to static and put in the WIFI setting and encryption key
You mentioned you “I installed the update wirelessly/OTA. ESPHome compiled the code and uploaded it to the device.” and “The upload was successful (“INFO OTA successful” and “Successfully uploaded program”).”
Do I get a file from somewhere for the update/upload? Is it updating the ESP32 device or the Athom firmware.
Really apologize for these stupid questions, but I really love the PS01 and I would really like it to work better and at the same time I would really want to learn more ESP Devices in general!
TIA!
Hi @noloboy, welcome to the fun world of ESPHome! 
Yes you’ve discovered what I did - when power cycled, by default the Athom devices forget their settings. One reason to apply the Blakadder ESPHome config is that the settings for mmWave will persist after a power cycle, as he states on his config page - Blakadder’s ESPHome Configurations | esphome-configs
I’m not an expert but here is what I have learned, in case it helps.
Actually the “ESPHome Firmware” you see for the Athom device details is the release version of ESPHome that is installed on the devices. I discovered that every time ESPHome code is updated, you need to install the ESPHome update via Home Assistant (in Home Assistant->Settings). Then any ESPHome devices that are installed in the ESPHome Dashboard will show “UPDATE AVAILABLE” if they are running an older version of ESPHome. To update them you would need to go to ESPHome and click “UPDATE” for each device, which requires the code to be recompiled and installed on each ESPHome device. You can update one at a time or just click the option within ESPHome’s dashboard to “UPDATE ALL.” I usually “UPDATE ALL” as it’s easier and takes less time to update my devices in the ESPHome dashboard.
If you are fine with updating the Athom device configs manually whenever powered up, there is no need to add them to ESPHome. But if you add them to ESPHome and apply Blakadder’s config to the devices (requires recompiling/installing firmware running on the Athom devices) you will then need to keep them updated in ESPHome (generally 1-2 times a month). It is a bit of a hassle but at least by doing this (a) your Athom devices would retain their config settings after power cycle and (b) they would be running the latest version of ESPHome code (which likely helps the devices run better as software enhancements are released). You could also just ignore the updates (no need to update if you don’t want to) but for me it is annoying to see the reminder so I just update it. 
So to update the firmware on the Athom devices (which includes Blakadder’s config changes, as well as the ESPHome software enhancements) you will need to install ESPHome to the devices and “adopt” them into the ESPHome dashboard within Home Assistant. In my case when setting up the Athom devices, they showed up for adoption in ESPHome dashboard so I had no issues there. But if it doesn’t show up you should be able to manually add it to ESPHome via Settings->Devices & Services->ESPHome->Add Device. Once it’s in the ESPHome dashboard you can “adopt” it and then within ESPHome, you find the device, click “EDIT”, insert the config settings for Blakadder’s config (including your current api encryption key, as well as wifi ssid/password settings) then install it. I installed wirelessly/OTA and it worked fine.
The process is kinda complicated at first, but after getting it working it made sense for me. Below are some more links to give you some more info. The ESPHome folks on Discord are a great resource for further assistance in case my newbie-level tips didn’t fully help (contact info in 3rd link below). Have fun with Home Assistant! 
By the way I found another presence sensor (very limited functionality, but works for very basic presence detection) made by Sonoff: SNZB-06P - SONOFF Official Got it for about $20 from Sonoff via eBay. It works great in my office/smaller spaces but for a larger space (living room for instance) I couldn’t get it to work right (it seems to have limited range, despite tuning the settings). Bearded Tinker(er) on YouTube has a great review of it. It also doesn’t use ESPHome (uses Zigbee, so you need a Zigbee coordinator like ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT to use it) so no need to keep updating it each month.
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Having your own yaml adopted also means you can alter the yaml code. For example, I found I altered the Occupation Sensor for mmWave to trigger only. Not that you need to do that but what ever suits your use case!
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Great point! For the ability to fully customize for a specific application, ESPHome & yaml is awesome. 
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Thank you! Just took the plunge and things are working as expected. Settings are sticking after the reboot now!
I guess for my experience I did a few extra steps since ESPHome Dashboard can only detect 2 of the 4 PS01 for some reason.
For those two devices I can adopt, I first adopted them, it did the compiling thing. Then I edited the yaml files, validated, then clicked install.
I wasn’t sure what to use, but I used this post for the yaml code:
changing it to my own name and wifi settings
After that, it like complied again. When it was done, now I see ANOTHER discovered device in ESPHome Dashboard which is the same one I edited/installed. The original one now shows “offline”. So that was weird or probably by design … not so sure.
So I adopted it again and this time, the YAML file is much shorter and simpler than looonggg code I copy and pasted.
I was prompted by HA to update the encryption and key now I can see the device setting is different which says “Hardware: 1.0-blak”
I then deleted the offline device from ESPHome Dashboard.
So I guess that is it?
Why is code shorter now vs the one I copied and pasted/complied originally? Do I have do something else or I’m good?
Thanks again!
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@noloboy, I think you’re done! Happy to help.
When I renamed a device I had a similar thing happen: The old device name hung around in ESPHome dashboard as Offline… I deleted it just like you deleted the Offline one in your case. It would be more “elegant” if it would just internally remove the old device, as it’s already been renamed… not sure why it works this way, maybe it’s for a reason I don’t understand.
I think the code is shorter because it only lists the changes to the code/firmware, compared to what was originally installed on the device. If someone else has a better understanding and they see this post, I’m sure they will correct me. 
And I had the same experience as you - device setting now has a different version of hardware (“Hardware: 1.0-blak”). That’s how you know it worked! Glad the settings now persist after a reboot. If you appreciate Blakadder’s code changes and would like to thank him, his config page has more info on that. His efforts made the Athom PS01 even better, I think. 
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Glad that you had the same experience so I think I didn’t mess it up! Yup will do thank him for sure.
Still playing around with the new settings as I’m not sure yet how or where it is better than the original firmware config from Athom.
Thanks again for your help and time replying to my questions
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So, a recent weird experience with the Athom PS01. I have one in a bathroom and it has been working fine for about 3 weeks… but overnight I noticed when looking at the activity logs it was detecting activity on mmWave every hour or so… this coincided with when the furnace was operating! I guess it was detecting furnace activity (a furnace air return is about 5 feet away)…
Not sure why the furnace was causing the PS01 to falsely detect activity on the mmWave band. In the PS01 config, I had to reduce “Maintain Sensitivity” from 7 to 0, and “Trigger Sensitivity” from 5 to 0. Now the furnace doesn’t cause false detections, and the PS01 works fine otherwise.
Has anyone else seen this behavior? Very weird that it was working fine for so long and then needed this “tuning”… 
Mine “keeps” detecting mmwave when a person is gone but the airconfan is on. Something keeps in motion cauding it to detect “a person” when not there.
