Class of binary sensors in changed Netatmo integration (0.105)

Friedrieck · February 9, 2020, 4:59pm

Hi,
Many thanks for the excellent work on the 0.105 releases, very much appreciated!
I am just wondering why the binary sensors automatically created for the Presence cameras for the different possibilities (animal, human, etc.) are not of the device_class ‘motion’ anymore.
Before I customise the 12 of them (3 cameras x 4), would you (@cgtobi? ) envisage to set it back? Thanks again for you great work!

cgtobi · February 9, 2020, 5:15pm

This was not intentional. I’ll put that back in ASAP.

Friedrieck · February 9, 2020, 5:20pm

Thanks a lot!

cgtobi · February 10, 2020, 12:02pm

Here is the fix. Feel free to test it if you can.

Friedrieck · February 10, 2020, 1:53pm

Thanks for your swift reaction.

I don’t know where to start… If you have a link to a ‘How to’ on this, I would be happy to give it a try.

cgtobi · February 10, 2020, 1:55pm

No worries, I have other testers. Looks good so far. Just checking on fixing tag support.

cgtobi · March 11, 2020, 8:56pm

Just a quick heads up, binary sensors were removed in the current beta since webhook support is back in.

Friedrieck · March 11, 2020, 10:57pm

I’m not sure to get it. Do you mean the four sensors for a Presence camera (animal, vehicle, etc.)? Why ?? I am using them for months for my three cameras! Would it mean I would have to rebuild them with a bunch of REST and template sensors?
If correct, could you please consider leaving them in, if necessary with a parameter in the config to create them or not?
Thanks.

cgtobi · March 11, 2020, 11:08pm

What are you using them for?

Everything that has been possible with those binary sensors is possible with the new webhook based event and much more.

They wont come back as they don’t even make much sense a binary sensors and are unreliable due to the latency.

Friedrieck · March 11, 2020, 11:57pm

I use the ‘human’ sensors with my alarm system, mainly.
I never used the Netatmo webhooks. So, I guess I will have to rebuild the sensors with them. I hope the doc will explain how to use them.

cgtobi · March 12, 2020, 6:28am

Guessing you are using them as triggers for automations it is pretty simple.

This should do the trick:

  trigger:
  - event_type: netatmo_event
    platform: event
    event_data:
      type: human

jorron · March 20, 2020, 8:22pm

Hey guys and thanks for the effort. I’m also driving a fair bit of automations using the netatmo presence cameras. Currently I’m turning on outside lights as well as triggering casting of the video feed to an inside tv when a human or vehicle is detected on two different cameras.

I was using the webhooks with node red when those where available and reverted back to the binary sensors over the last period. Currently I’m not able to detect any webhook events using either the event listener or node-red so not sure what is happening.
@Friedrieck Did you have any luck setting this up again?
@cgtobi Would it be a good idea to create the integration with the binary sensors again (but relying on the webhooks instead of the old pull method?)

Thanks and have a healthy and good weekend.

rleth · March 20, 2020, 8:38pm

Same here - i was also using the binary sensor to turn on outside light only when human was detected. Worked fine - not super fast, but ok. Super sad to see it removed, seems like a mistake to me.

gieljnssns · March 20, 2020, 8:45pm

I send all netatmo events to mqtt.

github.com

gieljnssns/My-Hassio-config/blob/7933c8941fcdfce59ff5837bc6fd02600a4361cd/config/automation/webhook/netatmo_component.yaml

  alias: Netatmo binary sensors
  initial_state: 'on'
  trigger:
    - platform: event
      event_type: netatmo_event
  action:
    - service: mqtt.publish
      data_template:
        topic: 'netatmo_component/update'
        retain: true
        payload_template: >
          {{ trigger.event.data| tojson }}

And then I make some mqtt binary sensors

github.com

gieljnssns/My-Hassio-config/blob/7933c8941fcdfce59ff5837bc6fd02600a4361cd/config/devices/binary_sensors/netatmo.yaml

  - platform: template
    sensors:
      presence_licht_aan:
        device_class: light
        value_template: "{{ is_state('input_boolean.spot_netatmo', 'on') }}"
      
      netatmo_webhook_trigger:
        device_class: motion
        friendly_name: Netatmo webhook trigger
        value_template: "{{ is_state('sensor.netatmo_webhook_trigger', 'NOC-human') }}"
  

  - platform: mqtt
    name: "netatmo_component_human"
    state_topic: "netatmo_component/update"
    device_class: motion
    off_delay: 90
    value_template: >
      {% if value_json.type == 'human' %}
        ON

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cgtobi · March 21, 2020, 9:57am

Hi Jørgen,

I don’t see what benefit a webhook event based binary sensor would be over the event itself.

Events are in my opinion only that, events. Constructing binary sensors representing a state of something is simply not correct, as an event is not a state and vice versa.

jorron · March 21, 2020, 9:29pm

For me, this is a UX matter. I have two presence cameras where I have several automations triggering based on its sensors, so now I have to make a template sensor for 6 sensors (human, animal + vehicle x2) to most efficiently be able to do the automations.

For everyone else having these products would probably have to go trough the same hassle of learning and setting up webhooks in either home assistant or node red instead of “just” relying on normal binary sensors. I still feel properly developed binary sensors would make most sense here, although I see your semantic point.

The webhooks is not properly documented at the moment, so I am seemingly not able to set them up again after the integration was set up using the UI instead of yaml. It is also not clear what the events types are, especially when I have mulltiple cameras. Am I missing something?

Again thanks for all your good work.

cgtobi · March 24, 2020, 1:45pm

I updated the documentation and included some examples. @jorron, lease let me know if you’re still missing things.

cgtobi · March 28, 2020, 10:17pm

For anyone who is seriously missing the binary sensors @gerard33 shared his event based recreation of them along with some very kind and encouraging words.