EnvisaLink/DSC integration not on UI but in Entities

Configuration
1

Hi all,
I just started play with HA and got an EnvisaLink 4 card for my DSC. After installed, I can use web browser to access with user/user, and it shows the Home/Network status, I can reboot the Envisalink. The config in configuration.yaml I think is not much different from lot of other posts:

# Example configuration.yaml entry
envisalink:
  host: 192.168.86.25
  panel_type: DSC
  user_name: user
  password: user
  code: xxxx
  port: 4025
  evl_version: 4
  keepalive_interval: 60
  zonedump_interval: 30
  timeout: 40
  panic_type: Police
  zones:
    01:
      name: 'Entrance Doors'
      type: 'opening'
    02:
      name: 'Lab Windows'
      type: 'opening'
    07:
      name: 'Garage-Exit Door'
      type: 'opening'
    08:
      name: 'First Floor Motion'
      type: 'motion'
  partitions:
    1:
      name: 'Home Alarm'

The device is not shown on the dashboard as other sensors do. It’s not in the device configuration panel either. In the ‘Configuration/Entities’, the list does have many zone entries, and it actually recorded the ‘opening’ and ‘motion’ detection time history correctly. When click on the item, it displays This entity ('binary_sensor.lab_windows') does not have a unique ID, therefore its settings cannot be managed from the UI. See the [documentation](https://www.home-assistant.io/faq/unique_id) for more detail. message.

I have read that the unique-id is to do with the integration implementation. But i’m wondering how come other people get this to work with UI no problem. What do I miss here? thanks.

2

The Alarm interface card doesn’t automatically populate in Lovelace because it is not a ‘Device’. It’s an entity and not the primary control entity for a device BECAUSE it’s not a device. (If the authors of the integration chose to create an alarm device and make this the primary entity it would have auto-populated. Whether it SHOULD be a device or not is up for debate - but out of scope for this discussion - if you think it should be, open a feature request ticket in github against the EVL integration.)

The above matters because in 2021.11 Entity Categorization happened:
2021.11: Icon picker, device links and entity categories - Blog - Home Assistant Community (home-assistant.io)

Basically, the relevant part:
With entities that are non-primary (so are either configuration or diagnostic entities), we now do the following:

  • Non-primary entities are hidden from generated Lovelace dashboards. This reduces the clutter and makes the generated dashboards more useful for daily use.
  • Non-primary entities are, by default, not exposed to Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. You, of course, still can expose them, but by default, we don’t send them to these voice assistants.
  • Non-primary entities are not called by service calls that target the device or area the device is in. They are only called if explicitly called by their entity ID.

In short you have to edit your dashboard and add the card yourself.

To do this, In Lovelace, Edit Dashboard (top Right) then Add Card (button, Bottom right)
…the Alarm control panel card is likely the very first one in the top left of the selection box. Add that card to your preferred dashboard and then point it at the entity for your Alarm panel.

3

Hi Nathan, got it. thanks for the suggestions and steps.