Binary Sensor to Turn off Lights with ESPresense

Configuration
1

I have a light automation where I want to add a condition of BLE devices NOT being in the room to turn lights off 5 minutes after their states change from room name (in this case ESPresense_br_primary to not_home). From what I read, the way to do this is through a binary sensor. I’m trying to set one up but keep getting errors.

In Developer Tools > Templates I created the binary sensor based on a post that I found from @tom_l in September 2022. It reads like this:

   - template:
    - binary_sensor: 
      - name: "Master Bedroom Occupancy"
        state: >
          {{ "ESPresense_br_primary" in [
            states('sensor.espresence_lynn_iphone'),
            states('sensor.espresence_ashley_iphone')] }}
        delay_on: 5
        delay_off: 5

I’m getting values or true/false in my results so I think it’s working properly.

When I go to add to configuration.yaml though, things start falling apart. and I get the error: unable to load schema from ‘http //schemas.home-assistant.io/configuration’ no content

And when I check config I get Invalid config for [sensor]: required key not provided @ data[‘platform’]. Got None. (See /config/configuration.yaml, line 20).

In my configuration.yaml I have:

### YAML File Locations
sensor: !include sensors.yaml

and my sensors.yaml is this:

### ESPresense Sensors ###
  # One entry for each beacon you want to track
- platform: mqtt_room
  device_id: "irk:f86b9a8c7ef8a663c2df2ba00d304250"
  name: "ESPresence Lynn iPhone"
  state_topic: "espresense/rooms"
  timeout: 10
  away_timeout: 120

- platform: mqtt_room
  device_id: "irk:b3ad1f15da3f18fe0a7c26eef85b8465"
  name: "ESPresence Lynn iPad6"
  state_topic: "espresense/rooms"
  timeout: 10
  away_timeout: 120

- platform: mqtt_room
  device_id: "ESPresence Ashley iPhone"
  name: "ESPresence Ashley iPhone"
  state_topic: "espresense/rooms"
  timeout: 10
  away_timeout: 120

- platform: mqtt_room
  device_id: "irk:116605e62ea8591ba66c9c1cc06cb23b"
  name: "ESPresence Ethan iPhone"
  state_topic: "espresense/rooms"
  timeout: 10
  away_timeout: 120
  
### Master BR Occupancy by Lynn and Ashley ###
- template:
    - binary_sensor:
        master_br_occupancy:
        - friendly_name: Master Bedroom Occupancy
          state: >
            {{ "ESPresense_br_primary" in [
            states('sensor.espresence_lynn_iphone'),
            states('sensor.espresence_ashley_iphone')] }}
          delay_on: 5
          delay_off: 30

I’m running HA inside of Proxmox:
Home Assistant 2023.5.2
Supervisor 2023.04.1
Operating System 10.1
Frontend 20230503.3 - latest

Thanks.

2

The template integration config does not go in your sensors.yaml file, put it in your configuration.yaml file. And make sure you get the indentation correct. Like this:

template:
  - binary_sensor: 
      - name: "Master Bedroom Occupancy"
        state: >
          {{ "ESPresense_br_primary" in [
            states('sensor.espresence_lynn_iphone'),
            states('sensor.espresence_ashley_iphone')] }}
        delay_on: 5
        delay_off: 5
3

Thank you, that did the trick!

I originally started it (along with my ESPresense sensors) in the configuration.yaml but was getting errors and read somewhere they had to be in different files so I moved both of them. The ESPresense sensors DO need to be in the sensors.yaml, correct?

I’m also still getting the error: unable to load schema from ‘http //schemas.home-assistant.io/configuration’ no content

Things seem to be working correctly, is that something to be concerned about?

4

That’s an error from your editor, not from HA proper.

5

Got it. Thanks.