Home Assistant Add-on: rtl_433 with MQTT auto discovery

allmyhinges · March 30, 2021, 3:58pm

Hi Jon, based on a log snippet you included in your initial post, it looks like the template is receiving a battery_ok value from the sensor (which I’m guessing is either set to 0 or 1) and turning it into a percentage using a somewhat silly formula: "value_template": "{{ float(value|int) * 99 + 1 }}" - that’s how you end up with either 0*99+1 = 1% or 1*99+1 = 100%. The sensor itself probably isn’t reporting actual battery charge percentage - I have the same situation with my Acurite temp/humidity sensors, btw.

allmyhinges · March 30, 2021, 4:18pm

Sorry to hear you are running into issues with the install. I haven’t been able to reproduce the error, unfortunately. I’m running hass OS on RPi4, with latest supervisor. Rebuilding the add-on works fine on my end.

Is your error message exactly same as Powskierman’s? If so, could you try downloading https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.13/main/armv7/APKINDEX.tar.gz in your browser and let me know whether that returns an error for you?

Jkeeb · March 30, 2021, 4:53pm

@allmyhinges I see now, would it be more appropriate to calculate the battery level based on the battery_mV value that the sensor is reporting?

blankey85 · March 31, 2021, 7:34pm

I was able to download the file without any issues. I tried to install it but I’m really new to all this Linux stuff and don’t know how to do much at this point in time.

This is the log message I get after clicking install.

21-03-31 19:21:13 ERROR (SyncWorker_0) [supervisor.docker.addon] Can’t build 74930c0d/armv7-addon-rtl433:0.1.2: The command ‘/bin/ash -o pipefail -c apk add --no-cache --virtual build-deps alpine-sdk cmake git libusb-dev && mkdir /tmp/src && cd /tmp/src && git clone git://git.osmocom.org/rtl-sdr.git && mkdir /tmp/src/rtl-sdr/build && cd /tmp/src/rtl-sdr/build && cmake …/ -DINSTALL_UDEV_RULES=ON -DDETACH_KERNEL_DRIVER=ON -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=/usr/local && make && make install && chmod +s /usr/local/bin/rtl_* && cd /tmp/src/ && git clone https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433 && cd rtl_433/ && mkdir build && cd build && cmake …/ && make && make install && apk del build-deps && rm -r /tmp/src && apk add --no-cache libusb’ returned a non-zero code: 5
21-03-31 19:21:13 ERROR (SyncWorker_0) [supervisor.docker.addon] Build log:
Step 1/15 : ARG BUILD_FROM
Step 2/15 : FROM $BUILD_FROM
—> c04f52c3c7ff
Step 3/15 : ENV LANG C.UTF-8
—> [Warning] The requested image’s platform (linux/arm) does not match the detected host platform (linux/arm64/v8) and no specific platform was requested
—> Running in 1e41ff5faede
Removing intermediate container 1e41ff5faede
—> 79a65e6d7563
Step 4/15 : MAINTAINER [email protected]
—> [Warning] The requested image’s platform (linux/arm) does not match the detected host platform (linux/arm64/v8) and no specific platform was requested
—> Running in ca1fff654abb
Removing intermediate container ca1fff654abb
—> 9ef70cbd0ab0
Step 5/15 : RUN apk add --no-cache --virtual build-deps alpine-sdk cmake git libusb-dev && mkdir /tmp/src && cd /tmp/src && git clone git://git.osmocom.org/rtl-sdr.git && mkdir /tmp/src/rtl-sdr/build && cd /tmp/src/rtl-sdr/build && cmake …/ -DINSTALL_UDEV_RULES=ON -DDETACH_KERNEL_DRIVER=ON -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=/usr/local && make && make install && chmod +s /usr/local/bin/rtl_* && cd /tmp/src/ && git clone https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433 && cd rtl_433/ && mkdir build && cd build && cmake …/ && make && make install && apk del build-deps && rm -r /tmp/src && apk add --no-cache libusb
—> [Warning] The requested image’s platform (linux/arm) does not match the detected host platform (linux/arm64/v8) and no specific platform was requested
—> Running in 6ac7d6751492
fetch https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.13/main/armv7/APKINDEX.tar.gz
fetch https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.13/community/armv7/APKINDEX.tar.gz
WARNING: Ignoring https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.13/main: temporary error (try again later)

WARNING: Ignoring https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.13/community: temporary error (try again later)

Messier1994 · March 31, 2021, 9:58pm

@allmyhinges Peter do you happen to know if you must have a SDR dongle to use RTL433 or if its possible with just a 433 receiver?

chump1039 · April 6, 2021, 8:23pm

Hey, first, thanks for the awesome work. Through some reading here and a little trial and error I got this reading 915mhz water sensors in my garden and feeing into home assistant.

I grabbed another nooelec stick and was thinking I’d leave one dedicated to 915mhz, and the other for 433 devices, rather than have one radio hop back and forth. Is this a deployment that this plugin supports?

Is it a matter of just listing a “device 0” section in the configuration file followed by a device 1 section? or do I need two instances of the plugin running with two different configuration files?

allmyhinges · April 7, 2021, 3:18am

Not sure - hopefully this list of receivers/dongles that rtl_433 supports will answer your question…

allmyhinges · April 7, 2021, 3:22am

More clues in your latest log output…
—> [Warning] The requested image’s platform (linux/arm) does not match the detected host platform (linux/arm64/v8) and no specific platform was requested
I’m sorry that you can’t get the thing running - I haven’t been able to reproduce the problem. I need to do more research…

allmyhinges · April 7, 2021, 3:26am

Reading rtl_433’s docs, I’m not 100% sure whether it supports reading data from multiple dongles at the same time… I suspect not. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten around to buying another dongle (been meaning to do the same - listen on diff frequencies). Are you able to test this scenario without disrupting your HA setup too much?

chump1039 · April 7, 2021, 12:59pm

Thanks, I know you can call a device at the command line so I assume you could run two processes concurrently with different device IDs.

Yeah, its no problem for me to test if you can point me in a direction.

Messier1994 · April 8, 2021, 7:39pm

Of course not,

Just wondered if anyone had tested with any other device than that super limited list — or had an educated guess.

blankey85 · April 9, 2021, 11:57pm

Hi Peter, so I’m a bit more confused now. I was able to copy the input from in the error log in the home assistant terminal (but not including the '/bin/bash -o pipefail -c ') as it doesn’t seem to know what to do with that and it appears to install everything correctly. However, when I go back to the add-on manager and try to install your add-on it still fails and gives the same error message.

So it might be installed, but I’m not sure how to access it. Any further thoughts?

bluenazgul · May 14, 2021, 1:07pm

I have both Addons running and publishing on mqtt, but I cant See any Sensors in HA.

Do i have to Set them Manuell? I thought “Auto Discover” should do this Job.

Webstas · May 24, 2021, 2:00pm

Anyone else having issues with the auto discovery script bailing out?

Starting rtl_433_mqtt_hass.py...
Exception in thread Thread-1:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/threading.py", line 932, in _bootstrap_inner
    self.run()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/threading.py", line 870, in run
    self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/paho/mqtt/client.py", line 3452, in _thread_main
    self.loop_forever(retry_first_connection=True)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/paho/mqtt/client.py", line 1779, in loop_forever
    rc = self.loop(timeout, max_packets)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/paho/mqtt/client.py", line 1181, in loop
    rc = self.loop_read(max_packets)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/paho/mqtt/client.py", line 1572, in loop_read
    rc = self._packet_read()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/paho/mqtt/client.py", line 2310, in _packet_read
    rc = self._packet_handle()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/paho/mqtt/client.py", line 2936, in _packet_handle
    return self._handle_publish()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/paho/mqtt/client.py", line 3216, in _handle_publish
    self._handle_on_message(message)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/paho/mqtt/client.py", line 3444, in _handle_on_message
    self.on_message(self, self._userdata, message)
  File "/rtl_433_mqtt_hass.py", line 481, in mqtt_message
    bridge_event_to_hass(client, topicprefix, data)
  File "/rtl_433_mqtt_hass.py", line 562, in bridge_event_to_hass
    if publish_config(mqttc, topic, model, instance, mappings[key]):
  File "/rtl_433_mqtt_hass.py", line 534, in publish_config
    mqttc.publish(path, json.dumps(config), retain=args.retain)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/paho/mqtt/client.py", line 1249, in publish
    raise ValueError('Publish topic cannot contain wildcards.')
ValueError: Publish topic cannot contain wildcards.

Webstas · May 24, 2021, 2:15pm

Found it, a device had a “+” in the name
{"time":"2021-05-24 08:06:56.521611","protocol":154,"model":"SCM+","id":95895498,"ProtocolID":"0x1E","EndpointType":"0x9C","EndpointID":95895498,"Consumption":655037,"Tamper":"0x0C08","PacketCRC":"0xBC10","MeterType":"Gas","mic":"CRC","mod":"ASK","freq":915.21728,"rssi":-7.45925,"snr":19.49981,"noise":-26.9591}

allmyhinges · May 25, 2021, 1:32am

Handling this in the github issue that you opened. Thanks for reaching out.

allmyhinges · May 25, 2021, 2:22am

Sorry, haven’t been able to work on this feature. Naive approach would require the add-on to launch two instances of rtl_433. Brute force: run two copies of the add-on with different command line options, by maybe forking the repo - ugly though…

allmyhinges · May 25, 2021, 2:24am

Apologies for long delay - haven’t had the time to work on this. Asking about some of the errors in the log elsewhere in this forum - maybe someone else has seen this behavior. Will be back to you if/when I hear anything.

deviantintegral · May 27, 2021, 11:15am

Somehow I missed your repository and started work on a similar addon at GitHub - deviantintegral/rtl_433_ha_addon: Integrate rtl_433 radios with Home Assistant. This looks great! I’d be interested in seeing what it takes to get this in the official addons repository.

A few thoughts:

I went down the path of a single addon hosting both rtl_433 and the discovery script. On the one hand, it felt like a simpler configuration, though it does mean that output from both commands is intermingled. I ended up prefixing output to handle that. Do you think enough users would only want rtl_433 and no discovery to make them separate? Or for that matter, enabling discovery could be an configuration option.
Any particular reason you went with compiling rtl-sdr instead of using the Alpine package?
We could probably reduce the final image size by using a builder container.
I also have an eventual need for multiple running instances. Perhaps the addon changes so there’s a rtl_433 configuration path, and we spawn one instance of rtl_433 per config file.

allmyhinges · June 16, 2021, 3:31pm

I’d say two thirds of users end up using both add-ons. One third only uses rtl_433 because the autodiscovery script doesn’t work for their sensors. I’m all for having only one add-on installed, at the expense of having a slightly more involved config.
Thanks for the PR!
Thanks for the PR!
Someone else asked for multiple instances of rtl_433 in this thread IIRC.

Would it make sense for me to move the repo out into its own Github org or something like that and make you one of the admins, so that I’m not the only one running the thing and holding up PRs etc? Would love to have more devs contribute to this just like you did - maybe it’s a step on the path to getting into an official add-on distro…