A smart house can have dozens of devices (we have ~80 of them). The need for a reliable monitoring system is even higher for the Wi-Fi devices, as they might get disconnected due to weak Wi-Fi signal.
We use an active ping-based monitoring with notifications when a device gets disconnected.
Ping Sensors
We use static DHCP leases for all devices, so the IP address is fixed. In order to generate the list of ping sensors with the relevant IP address we use the following template (which covers the Shelly and Google devices):
{% for device in
states |
selectattr('entity_id', 'in', integration_entities('shelly')) |
map(attribute='entity_id') |
map('device_id') |
map('string') |
select("ne", "None") |
unique
-%}
{% if device_attr(device, 'model') not in ['Shelly Flood', 'Shelly Motion', 'Shelly H&T', 'Shelly Button1'] -%}
- platform: ping
name: "{{ device_attr(device, 'name') | title }} Ping"
host: {{ device_attr(device, 'configuration_url').split('/')[-1] }}
{% endif -%}
{% endfor -%}
{% for sensor in
states.sensor |
selectattr('entity_id', 'in', integration_entities('Google Home')) |
selectattr('entity_id', 'match', '.*\_device') |
map(attribute='entity_id')
-%}
- platform: ping
name: "{{ state_attr(sensor, 'friendly_name') | title }} Ping"
host: {{ states(sensor) }}
{% endfor %}
The output of this template was copied into ping_sensors.yaml. Here is the beginning of this file:
- platform: ping
name: "Dining Room Lights Ping"
host: 192.168.1.168
- platform: ping
name: "Guest Room Lights Ping"
host: 192.168.1.233
- platform: ping
name: "Attic Venta Ping"
host: 192.168.1.93
The following line was added to configuration.yaml for creating the ping sensors:
binary_sensor: !include ping_sensors.yaml
Note: It’s not required to use a template for generating the list of sensors. It can be created manually. In our case the list contains ~80 entries, so it’s error prone to do it manually.
Aggregated State
The next step was to create a combined state showing only the disconnected sensors (if there are such). This is done using the following binary sensor template in the configuration.yaml:
template:
- binary_sensor:
- name: "Disconnected Devices"
unique_id: disconnected_devices
state: >-
{{
states.binary_sensor |
rejectattr('attributes.device_class', 'undefined') |
selectattr('attributes.device_class', 'eq', 'connectivity') |
selectattr('entity_id', 'match', '.*_ping') |
selectattr('state', 'eq', 'off') |
map(attribute='entity_id') |
list |
length > 0
}}
attributes:
long_term: >-
{{
states.binary_sensor |
rejectattr('attributes.device_class', 'undefined') |
selectattr('attributes.device_class', 'eq', 'connectivity') |
selectattr('entity_id', 'match', '.*_ping') |
selectattr('state', 'eq', 'off') |
selectattr('last_changed', 'lt', now() - timedelta(minutes = 5)) |
map(attribute='entity_id') |
map('replace', 'binary_sensor.', '') |
map('replace', '_ping', '') |
map('replace', '_', ' ') |
map('title') |
sort |
list
}}
ping_sensors: >-
{{
states.binary_sensor |
rejectattr('attributes.device_class', 'undefined') |
selectattr('attributes.device_class', 'eq', 'connectivity') |
selectattr('entity_id', 'match', '.*_ping') |
selectattr('state', 'eq', 'off') |
map(attribute='entity_id') |
sort |
list
}}
The filter selectattr('last_changed', 'lt', now() - timedelta(minutes = 5)) in the long_term attribute provides a grace period for temporarily disconnections. It’s used with the following automation rule to make sure a device really got disconnected from the network (after multiple ping retries):
- id: device_monitoring_high_frequency
alias: device_monitoring_high_frequency
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.disconnected_devices
to: "on"
action:
- repeat:
while:
- condition: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.disconnected_devices
state: "on"
- condition: template
value_template: "{{ repeat.index <= 30 }}"
sequence:
- delay: 10
- variables:
ping_entities: >-
{{
state_attr('binary_sensor.disconnected_devices', 'ping_sensors') |
join(',')
}}
- if: "{{ ping_entities | length > 0 }}"
then:
- service: homeassistant.update_entity
data:
entity_id: "{{ ping_entities }}"
Notifications
The last part of the solution is notification. We also put the information in a log file for long term analysis.
The configuration.yaml contains the following:
notify:
- name: gmail
platform: smtp
server: "smtp.gmail.com"
port: 587
timeout: 15
sender: "[email protected]"
encryption: starttls
username: "[email protected]"
password: !secret gmail
recipient:
- "[email protected]"
- name: disconnected_log
platform: file
filename: /config/ping/log.txt
(The full email address was masked.)
And automations.yaml contains the following rule:
- id: device_monitoring
alias: device_monitoring
mode: queued
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.disconnected_devices
attribute: long_term
action:
- variables:
current_offline: "{{ state_attr('binary_sensor.disconnected_devices', 'long_term') | list }}"
previous_offline: "{{ trigger.from_state.attributes.long_term | list }}"
disconnected: "{{ current_offline | reject('in', previous_offline) | list }}"
reconnected: "{{ previous_offline | reject('in', current_offline) | list }}"
disconnected_old: "{{ current_offline | select('in', previous_offline) | list }}"
message: |-
{% if disconnected | length > 0 -%}
Disconnected:
- {{ disconnected | join('\n - ') }}
{% endif -%}
{% if reconnected | length > 0 -%}
Re-connected:
- {{ reconnected | join('\n - ') }}
{% endif -%}
{% if disconnected_old | length > 0 -%}
Disconnected (old):
- {{ disconnected_old | join('\n - ') }}
{% endif -%}
{% set timestamp = now().isoformat().split('.')[0].replace('T', ' ') -%}
[{{ timestamp }}]
- service: notify.gmail
data:
title: "Home Assistant Device Monitoring"
message: "{{ message }}"
- service: notify.disconnected_log
data:
message: |
{{ message }}
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This solution is running for multiple months in our house, and was able to detect Wi-Fi coverage issues. The current version doesn’t have false positives (the initial one surely had such), and we are happy with the confidence it provides for the health of the devices in our smart home.