Last week a user asked me about how I approached integrating the Hunter X-Core via DM. To help out future users getting started I will also post my answer to him in this topic.
Setup the mqtt broker
If you don’t want to communicate to the WeMos D1 Mini Pro via mqtt skip this step
First you setup a mqtt broker to communicate with the WeMos D1 Mini Pro (mosquitto).
I prefer communication via mqtt since you don’t need to know the WeMos IP address. And therefor don’t have to configure a static IP.
Setup the WeMos D1 Mini Pro
Install the software on the WeMos D1 Mini Pro as described on the Github page.
Make sure to fill in all requested information when you configure the WeMos via the web interface otherwise the WeMos won’t start properly and end up in a boot loop.
If you don’t want to use mqtt you have to fill in something in the web interface configuration otherwise you will end up in the boot loop.
Connect the Wemos to the Hunter X-Core
Now follow the guide on Github to connect the WeMos to The Hunter X-Core. The documentation linked to from the start post is also worth reading.
The WeMos fitted inside the Hunter’s case so the risk of someone accidently damaging it is pretty small.
Debugging mqtt
Use MQTT-Explorer to connect to your mosquito broker. If I remember correctly the WeMos should send a message to the broker on start up. That message will include the mqtt address. In my case this was hunter/X-CORE
.
Integrating in Home Assistant
At this point you can copy past my code to a Home Assistant Package and modify to your preferences. As far as I understand a package is just a yaml file where you can bundle multiple entities with a certain purpose.
Add packages to your configuration.yaml (I added it at the top).
homeassistant:
packages: !include_dir_named packages
Now add the configuration I posted in the topic to a package, in my case that is config/packages/irrigatie.yaml