Automation when anyone (>=1 of n) or no one is in a room

AlfredJKwack · September 18, 2022, 11:16am

Hi.

My objective is to automate a few things based on any of a range of mqtt_room sensors (one or more) being in a given room at any given time.

Here’s the setup I have:

I have an ESP32 board set up with ESPresense and communicating over mqtt. It’s device messages are integrated with HA as sensors under the mqtt_room platform. I have several individual devices tracked and integration as below:

sensor: 
  - platform: mqtt_room
    name: "alfred_iphone_ble"
    device_id: "irk:theorems-iphone"
    state_topic: "espresense/rooms"
    timeout: 5
    away_timeout: 120

The room where the ESP32 is set up appears in mqtt under the topic: espresense/rooms/office.

I have validated the setup works and the history of all the sensors is correct, stating office or not_home at the appropriate times.

As stated, I’d like to automate a few things based on any of the sensors being in the room at a given time. I don’t care which sensor is there, what I care for is whether there is at least one or none.

How would I best approach this?

I was thinking of incrementing/decrementing a counter helper entity with one automation every time one of the devices would enter/leave the room. I could then use the count state itself to drive further automations (eg. turn lights on/off, etc etc). Is that an appropriate approach?

Counter increment:

Triggers:

platform: state
entity_id:
  - sensor.peter_iphone_ble
  - sensor.alfred_iphone_ble
  - sensor.alfred_watch_ble
  - sensor.jane_iphone_ble
from: office
for:
  hours: 0
  minutes: 0
  seconds: 5

Actions:

service: counter.increment
data: {}
target:
  entity_id: counter.office_count

Counter decrement:

Triggers:

platform: state
entity_id:
  - sensor.peter_iphone_ble
  - sensor.alfred_iphone_ble
  - sensor.alfred_watch_ble
  - sensor.jane_iphone_ble
to: office
for:
  hours: 0
  minutes: 0
  seconds: 30

Actions:

service: counter.decrement
data: {}
target:
  entity_id: counter.office_count

Are there more efficient approaches to this?

tom_l · September 18, 2022, 12:11pm

Make a template sensor for each room like this:

template:
  - binary_sensor:
      - name: "Office Occupied"
        state: >
          {{ "office" in [
            states('sensor.peter_iphone_ble'),
            states('sensor.alfred_iphone_ble'),
            states('sensor.alfred_watch_ble'),
            states('sensor.jane_iphone_ble') ] }}
        delay_on: 5
        delay_off: 30

Use them as triggers or conditions in your automations.

AlfredJKwack · September 18, 2022, 12:13pm

Thanks a bunch @tom_l very much appreciated. I knew there was a better way, just could not find my way through to it.

tfmeier · June 21, 2023, 7:21am

I’m trying this out with an old Fitbit tracker but not successful so far. Not sure where I go wrong

Installed firmware on the ESP
ESP seems to be looking for BLE signals

rst:0x1 (POWERON_RESET),boot:0x13 (SPI_FAST_FLASH_BOOT)
configsip: 0, SPIWP:0xee
clk_drv:0x00,q_drv:0x00,d_drv:0x00,cs0_drv:0x00,hd_drv:0x00,wp_drv:0x00
mode:DIO, clock div:2
load:0x3fff0018,len:4
load:0x3fff001c,len:1044
load:0x40078000,len:8896
load:0x40080400,len:5828
entry 0x400806ac
Pre-Setup Free Mem: 206732
Setup network
Connecting to WiFi SSID 'xxxxxxxx'............................................................192.168.2.247
Firmware:     esp32
Version:      v3.2.4
WiFi BSSID:   74:AC:B9:5C:EA:49 (channel=11 rssi=-63)
IP address:   192.168.2.247
DNS address:  192.168.2.1
Hostname:     espresense-office
Room:         Office
Mqtt server:  192.168.2.97:1883
Max Distance: 4.50
PIR Sensor:   disabled
Radar Sensor: disabled
I2C Bus 1:    sda=21 scl=22
Query:        
Include:      
Exclude:      
Known Macs:   
Count Ids:    
Post-Setup Free Mem: 140012

1 Motion | Pir: no Radar: no
1 Advert | iBeacon
1 New    | 74acb95cea4b | 74acb95cea4b                                              -70dBm 
1 New    | 56c9863b66d2 | sd:0xfe9f                                                 -82dBm 
1 New    | 66c0c53027ef | apple:1002:6-12                                           -94dBm 0200
1 New    | 454545a6505f | sd:0xfe9f                                                 -83dBm 
1 Config | iBeacon:e5ca1ade-f007-ba11-0000-000000000000-252-9261 to {"id":"node:office","name":"Office"}

I saw the device_id of the Fitbit
Created the following sensor of the Fitbit

sensor:
  - platform: mqtt_room
    device_id: "sd:0x180a"
    name: 'Fitbit Thomas'
    state_topic: 'espresence/devices/sd:0x180a'
    timeout: 10
    away_timeout: 120

I see the base station connected
image890×219 18.6 KB
When checking the beacon’s entity all I see is not_home and no change to state
image1052×76 5.93 KB

Is there an issue with MQTT topics? Anything else I need to watch out for?

Morcegolas · June 30, 2023, 12:01pm

I created the templates, now how do I use them as a trigger in automation? Thanks.

tom_l · June 30, 2023, 12:21pm

They are binary sensors. So a state trigger would be best.

trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.office_occupled
    from: 'off'
    to: 'on' # when the office is occupied

Morcegolas · June 30, 2023, 1:17pm

My problem is that binary_sensor.office_occupied is not showing although I already created sensor_office.yaml and I already restarted HA, I’m missing something…

tom_l · June 30, 2023, 1:23pm

Not

template:
  - sensor:

Morcegolas · June 30, 2023, 1:26pm

File /config/sensor_escritorio.yaml

template:
  - binary_sensor:
      - name: "Escritorio_ocupado"
        state: >
          {{ "escritorio" in [
            states('sensor.applewatchmorcegolas_ble'),
            states('sensor.iphoneMorcegolas_ble') ] }}
        delay_on: 5
        delay_off: 30

tom_l · June 30, 2023, 1:37pm

How are you including that file?

Morcegolas · June 30, 2023, 1:48pm

It might be the problem, I don’t
I think I need to add it to configuration.yaml

This is what I have:

automation: !include automations.yaml
script: !include scripts.yaml
scene: !include scenes.yaml
sensor: !include mysensors.yaml

tom_l · June 30, 2023, 2:00pm

Yes that is the problem. You have not included the template: integration at all in your configuration.yaml file.

You have to be very careful how you do it too. It is not structured like other integrations.

Morcegolas · June 30, 2023, 2:38pm

Can you help me doing that? I’m a starter here. I have this file and then repeat for all off them

tom_l · June 30, 2023, 2:53pm

There are lots of ways of doing it depending on the structure you want, have a read of this topic, but ignore all the failed attempts at the beginning, so from about here onwards: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/splitting-config-for-template/328636/44?u=tom_l

Morcegolas · June 30, 2023, 3:21pm

That’s a lot to read and assimilate
What’s the easiest way of doing this? Can’t I add all the templates in one file instead of creating a bunch of files with a template for each room?

In the thread you sent my you have a lot of files:

templates.yaml
template_sensors.yaml
template_binary_sensors.yaml

Help me breaking this out please.

First I add to configuration.yaml:

template: !include templates.yaml

In templates.yaml I just need to put this because I don’t have template_sensors:

- binary_sensor: !include template_binary_sensors.yaml

And in template_binary_sensors.yaml what do I need to put?

tom_l · June 30, 2023, 3:25pm

Yes you can do that. Then in the binary sensors file only put the part starting with - name:...

- name: "Office Occupied"
  state: >
    {{ "office" in [
      states('sensor.peter_iphone_ble'),
      states('sensor.alfred_iphone_ble'),
      states('sensor.alfred_watch_ble'),
      states('sensor.jane_iphone_ble') ] }}
  delay_on: 5
  delay_off: 30

- name: "some other room"
  state: > etc...

Morcegolas · June 30, 2023, 3:26pm

template_binary_sensors.yaml:

template:
  - binary_sensor:
      - name: "Escritorio_ocupado"
        state: >
          {{ "escritorio" in [
            states('sensor.applewatchmorcegolas_ble'),
            states('sensor.iphoneMorcegolas_ble') ] }}
        delay_on: 5
        delay_off: 30
      - name: "Quarto_ocupado"
        state: >
          {{ "quarto" in [
            states('sensor.applewatchmorcegolas_ble'),
            states('sensor.iphoneMorcegolas_ble') ] }}
        delay_on: 5
        delay_off: 30

Could be this?

tom_l · June 30, 2023, 3:29pm

No, look at the example in my post above.

You already have template: and - binary_sensor: in the include structure if you put it in the file as well you will double up on both of them and get nothing but config errors.

It will resolve to something like this;

template:
  - binary_sensor:
      template:
        - binary_sensor:
            - name: etc...

You don’t want that.

Morcegolas · June 30, 2023, 3:34pm

I got it, thanks! Let my try it to see if it will work.

Morcegolas · June 30, 2023, 6:38pm

@tom_l it worked, many thanks for helping out.

Just one more little question, the automation I’m trying to make work, but I need to use entity instead of device, but in Automations/Actions I can’t find one for entities.

This is what I have for devices:

alias: Test
description: ""
trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id:
      - binary_sensor.quarto_ocupado
    from: "off"
    to: "on"
condition: []
action:
  - type: turn_on
    device_id: b7b8fae214399f40e749a6cf7aebfdf5
    entity_id: light.luz_switch_1
    domain: light
mode: single

If I remove device_id it says it’s malformed

I got it, I have to use service