How to make deep sleep sensor show unavailable

ESPHome
1

I’d like my ESPhome sensor to show unavailable in HA if it’s disconnected, if the battery dies etc. Currently it just shows the last state reported.

I don’t want it to show unavailable if it’s just sleeping - only after an extended (ideally programmable) time.

This seems to be the opposite of what everyone is asking for. Am I missing something?

2

Show your code to see how you have gotten into this mess.

3

I will mention that it works sometimes i.e. that state is marked as unavailable. I know that I can write an automation to achieve the desired result, but I thought this would happen automatically. Here’s my code:

esphome:
  name: new32
  friendly_name: front_door_esp
  on_boot: 
    then:
      - switch.toggle: led
      - delay: 1s
      - switch.toggle: led
          

esp32:
  board: esp32dev
  framework:
    type: arduino

# Enable logging
logger:

# Enable Home Assistant API
api:
  encryption:
    key: "3KMh7sKH2alrQrzPo8NZ16kfgZwzGuY0R38N1QHb/ss="

ota:
  - platform: esphome
    password: "16afd332cfd5d03f6cb81bfa506309c8"

wifi:
  ssid: !secret wifi_ssid
  password: !secret wifi_password
  fast_connect: True

  # Enable fallback hotspot (captive portal) in case wifi connection fails
  ap:
    ssid: "New32 Fallback Hotspot"
    password: "gfCExsmT6C4F"

captive_portal:

deep_sleep:
  run_duration: 10s
  sleep_duration: 5min
  wakeup_pin: 
    number: GPIO4
    allow_other_uses: true

binary_sensor:
  - platform: gpio
    device_class: door
    pin:
      number: GPIO4
      allow_other_uses: true
      mode:
        input: true
        pullup: true
    name: esp_sensor_1
    id: front_door_esp  

switch:
  - platform: gpio
    pin:
      number: GPIO2 
      mode: output
    id: led
4

Home Assistant does not maintain a constant connection to its sensors, and so the HA dashboard shows the last value received - as you have observed. I see you are using ESP32 deep_sleep, which actually powers the ESP32 off … so disconnection is normal expected behaviour.

I found it helpful when trying to work out if a device was faulty to turn on the “Last updated” secondary value in most of the Entities lists in my dashboards, like

Screenshot from 2025-04-03 12-22-00
Screenshot from 2025-04-03 12-22-00989×751 55.6 KB

You can see the the result in the preview pane on the right hand side. I have now turned on the Last Updated secondary info almost everywhere to give me confidence that the values are indeed being received by HA.

I notice that your ESP is awake for only 10 seconds every 5 minutes. Ten seconds is not very long … must be difficult trying to catch that window for doing updates OTA :wink:

I wonder if sometimes 10 seconds is not long enough for the ESP to power on, ESPHome to start up and connect to wi-fi … and so the “unavailable” you see may be that the ESP32 is still waking up. I have noticed my HA dashboard sensors show “Unavailable” briefly while my ESP32 is waking up. Or maybe it is that HA hasn’t received several updates in a row and has timed out.

Going off on a tangent, you might like to add a battery voltage sensor to your ESP32. I think it’s better to have a value, and be able to react before your battery goes flat. And how do you intend to handle a flat battery ?

Other than that, I think the logic to determine if the ESP has been disconnected too long will need to be in HA.

1 Like
5

Thank you for the reply and the info.

I’ve found that if I open the door, the sensor is constantly triggered and awake so OTA works fine.

I would like to know the battery voltage but it isn’t critical for this application. I will have easy physical access and these only need them to work for a finite time which is much less than the capacity of my batteries.