I have a persistent problem with a (GEMINI generated) code that will not be compiled. Tested the YAML syntax with syntax checker like yamllint.com and seems correct.
INFO ESPHome 2025.6.3
INFO Reading configuration /config/esphome/g32-display.yaml...
Failed config
script: [source /config/esphome/g32-display.yaml:797]
- id: set_grill_entity_ids
then:
-
Couldn't find ID 'new_zone1_entity_id'. Please check you have defined an ID with that name in your configuration. These IDs look similar: "set_grill_entity_ids".
lambda: !lambda |-
std::string grill_prefix = id(active_grill_name).state;
std::string new_zone1_entity_id = "sensor." + grill_prefix + "_g32_zone_1";
id(g32_zone1).set_entity_id(new_zone1_entity_id);
mode: single
parameters: {}
The code seems to be straightforward and I am lost atm. Can someone please help?
The error gives you the problem. The ID new_zone1_entity_id sensor isn’t defined anywhere. I see you used that name as a string variable in the lambda, but a string variable isn’t an ID. An ID is set when you define a sensor.
It would help if you posted your entire YAML and not a snippet.
Ok, I did not expect that GEMINI would use non-existing functions, my first attempt using AI for code generation …
But I can just omit that function and the problem remains the same.
Error message says that it 'Couldn’t find ID ‘new_zone1_entity_id’.
I do not use this as an ID! I have it declared as a string and this string is used in id(g32_zone1).set_entity_id(new_zone1_entity_id).
It is not your fault, but really, AI only sounds right, but isn’t. Starting from scratch is indeed the right approach. Start by telling what you want to achieve.
OK. I use a HACS integration which looks for Otto Wilde G32 grills in the Wifi network and when it finds one, it creates HA entities for 4 zone temperatures of the grill named ‘sensor.nickname_g32_zone_1’ to ‘sensor.nickname_g32_zone_4’ where ‘nickname’ is a name string read from the grill. If you own more than one of these grills, their names will have to be different and you get different entities in HA.
Now I have an ESPHome Display which displays these zone temperatures and which shall connect to HA, read if there is a grill (and its entities) present, read the nickname and shall display the abovementioned temperatures (entities). I do not want to hardcode the entity names in the Display, but they shall be dynamic!
The code above seemed to do the trick for me in an rather elegant way, but maybe this is not possible at all (redefine entity names on the fly)?
If I had to do this, I’d do the work in HA by creating template sensors (e.g. grill1, grill2 etc, up to the maximum number of grills you’re likely to have) that pull in the status of the dynamically-named grill entities. The ESP code would then just reference those hard-coded template sensor IDs, and read the nickname for the grill from them.
If you want help with that, we’d need to see the sort of sensor(s) that the integration is creating.
GEMINI made me think that dynamically defined entity names would work in ESPHome! OK, that does not seem to be true.
I am in contact with the developer of the HACS G32 grill integration and he will now introduce extra fixed names for the entities, so that this problem will be solved soon.
But it looked like a sleek solution …
set_entity_id expects (as the name strong implies) an entity_id as an argument. In this case it’s looking for the entity_id new_zone1_entity_id and not finding it. If you want the VALUE of new_zone1_entity_id to be used as the entity_id you’ll need to do something different.
I’m going to say again that without the actual complete YAML (especially given the garbage AI stuff we’re starting with), it’s going to be hard to help you.
I have not found an single example, for which purpose set_entity_id() can be used meaningfully.
GEMINI suggested that it can be used to replace a spaceholder ID (g32_zone1) later during runtime with a dynamically ‘created’ ID (in this case 'new_zone1_entity_id). OK, this seems to be wrong, and as far as I understand the ESPHome documentation there is no way to dynamically change IDs during runtime. Is this correct?
It wouldn’t matter if it would work anyways. Home assistant only honors the original entity_id when the entity is first onboarded. Any entity_id change beyond that is ignored because it will break automations.
Thank you . But I do not quite get the meaning of your answer. I do not want to change any ID in HA, I want to adapt the ESPHome reference to this ID in ESPHome.
If the integration decides to create an ID sensor.my_grill_temperature1, where my_grill is the serial number of my grill, I want my ESPHome display to automatically adapt to this ID.
The ID is never changed in HA after first installation!
I found a way now to get around this problem. I use a substitution and construct the ID strings during compile time (so easy, sorry that I made such a mess from it).
