Hey there,
I’m new with HA. This is my first setup.
I’ve checked all related topics I’ve could find in this forum, videos on youtube, blogs, etc. But this just contributed to confusing me even more. So my last resort is to ask for help from members of this community.
TLDR: The configuration of each espresense station seems ok (mqtt messages being received on broker, and it shows up in HA). The tracked device is enrolled just fine, the mqtt messages are being received for each tracked device, but HA seems unable to see them and as result, I have distance:null and no changes of state. Need help to find the problem and fix.
I’m trying to setup 4 ESPresense stations. Here is one of them (configuration.yaml, under sensor block):
- platform: mqtt
name: ESPresense-Escritorio
state_topic: espresense/rooms/escritorio/status
json_attributes_topic: espresense/rooms/escritorio/telemetry
payload_on: online
payload_off: offline
device_class: connectivity
As result, I have it showing up in the mqtt broker (MQTT Explorer), and my dashboard just fine
All data are populated in “states” (development tools) as it should (I guess).
The problem is related with the tracked devices. They all show up with distance: null and not updating at all, despite the MQTT explorer showing every single message being received just fine.
Here is the configuration.yaml block for the watch (under sensor block):
- platform: mqtt_room
device_id: "irk:7xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx27"
name: "Watch Douglas"
state_topic: "espresense/devices/watch_douglas"
timeout: 10
away_timeout: 120
As you can see, the irk is already there. The state_topic is not using the irk but the alias name for the device to match the ESPresense configuration (enroll):
And match the MQTT dynamically created topic here:
The device shows up as sensor under Development Tools → states but it has state (distance: null) :
The current checklist:
- ESPresense created and being detected in HA
- tracked device enroll process done in ESPresense
- tracked device configured under sensor block with the correct irk and topic
- sensor created for the tracked device, but does not update states
Thoughts:
as the mqtt message is being received, sent by the ESPresense station, the esp part seems to be fine. So the problem should be in HA configuration. The most obvious reason seems to be the wrong topic for the messages to be checked for states.
I’ve followed the current official manual (espresense website) and it says that we should use:
state_topic: 'espresense/devices/irk:7***********************************27'
But that topic under devices is not present. Instead, it created the watch_douglas topic, and then I’ve configured that.
I noticed a few posts here and some videos referring espresense/rooms, but those seems to be prior to 2023. All most recent content seems to be aligned to the now official documentation (espresense/devices/).
So i’m not sure what’s going on here.
Anyone has some clue or direction to assist me on this?
Any help would be very appreciated.
Thank you
UPDATE: THAT HAPPENS FOR ALL AND ANY TRACKED DEVICE.