Automating a MQTT device to trigger a non MQTT device

Configuration
21

Why? That’s for actual people who might have multiple device_trackers associated to them.

Anyway, the screenshots you posted show that ratgdo is publishing MQTT Discovery payloads. In other words, it’s attempting to create entities in Home Assistant. In a previous screenshot, it shows that those entities were created. That means Home Assistant is connected to the MQTT broker. So far, so good.

The cover entity is configured is configured to receive its status via this topic (or at least I think it ends with state because that part is cutoff in the screenshot):

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/home/garage/gym/ratgdoratgdo-24534/state

Use an MQTT client, like MQTT Explorer, to check that topic, it should contain values representing the garage door’s current state.

22

I installed mqtt explorer. I cleared a couple retained topics from what I believe were previous failed installs and that removed the duplicate ratgdo from the left side.
I see state topic on the right is status/door.
But on the left I onky see status for availability or obstruction, not opened or closed.

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23

The MQTT Discovery payload creates an MQTT Cover designed to subscribe to the following topic:

/home/garage/gym/ratgdoratgdo-24534/status/door

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That topic is not displayed in MQTT Explorer which implies nothing has ever been published to it yet.

I don’t know why the following three topics are present (possibly related to some previous configuration attempts?) because they don’t have the structure defined in the MQTT Discovery payload.

ratgdo-24534/status
ratgdo-24534/availability 
ratgdo-24534/obstruction

The MQTT Discovery payload creates topics that all begin with:

/home/garage/gym/ratgdoratgdo-24534

That’s the meaning of the first line in the discovery payload:

"~": "/home/garage/gym/ratgdoratgdo-24534",

tl;dr
Your ratdgo device doesn’t appear to have published any status information yet.

24

Well then that takes me back to either the opener doesn’t provide that status, or it’s not wired correctly. I’ll keep reading about the ratgdo and see if I can find something I missed.
The good news is that I have learned a ton about mqtt, and reading logs, I really appreciate the help thank you.

25

The ratgdo used MQTT Discovery to create three entities: cover, light, binary_sensor.
Based on the MQTT Explorer screenshot you posted, it appears that none of them have received data from the ratgdo (because there are no topics starting with /home).

We do know that the ratgdo is able to connect to the broker and publish to topics but it hasn’t reported the state of anything it’s designed to monitor/control. Based on that, I agree you should double check its wiring to your garage door opener.

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