Making a sensor deep sleep

ESPHome
#1

I have a ESP8266-based sensor. It seems to gather data properly, but it was suggested that I have it go into a deep sleep to make the battery last longer. Following is a part of the sensor’s yaml file:

esphome:
  name: luxsensor
  platform: ESP8266
  board: nodemcuv2

wifi:
  ssid: <SSID>
  password: pwd

deep_sleep:
  run_duration: 60s
  sleep_duration: 10min

sensor:
  - platform: bh1750
    name: "Light Level"
    address: 0x23
    update_interval: 1s

I have this sensor on the homepage of Home Assistant and when I click on it, I see a chart of data. When I zoomed way in, I noticed that data points are two minutes apart, which strongly suggests I have something wrong in the yaml. Any ideas?

#2

Take a look at the esphome log.

Also, for a reason I now forget, deep sleep is better used with mqtt than the api.

#3

The log shows a data point every second - way too fast! Not sure that I can make this a MQTT device…

#4

Why did you set it to 1s then?

#5

I suspect that some parameters are being set someplace other than my yaml file. Here is the updated yaml file:

esphome:
  name: luxsensor
  platform: ESP8266
  board: nodemcuv2

wifi:
  ssid: <SSID>
  password: <pwd>

deep_sleep:
  run_duration: 60s
  sleep_duration: 10min

sensor:
  - platform: bh1750
    name: "Light Level"
    address: 0x23
    update_interval: 90s

Once I updated it, I rebooted the HA system. When I looked at the log, I see this:

[17:57:42][C][bh1750.sensor:118]: BH1750 'Light Level'
[17:57:42][C][bh1750.sensor:118]:   Device Class: 'illuminance'
[17:57:42][C][bh1750.sensor:118]:   State Class: 'measurement'
[17:57:42][C][bh1750.sensor:118]:   Unit of Measurement: 'lx'
[17:57:42][C][bh1750.sensor:118]:   Accuracy Decimals: 1
[17:57:42][C][bh1750.sensor:119]:   Address: 0x23
[17:57:42][C][bh1750.sensor:124]:   Update Interval: 1.0s
[17:57:42][C][restart:022]: Restart Switch 'Lux Sensor Restart'

[17:57:42][D][bh1750.sensor:159]: 'Light Level': Got illuminance=17.9lx
[17:57:43][D][bh1750.sensor:159]: 'Light Level': Got illuminance=17.9lx

I have no idea why this is updating every second. Also, no idea where the system is getting the device class or unit of measurement. Perhaps there is a file that defines the BH1750 someplace? Perhaps that file is setting the update time to 1 sec and my yaml is not over-riding that?

#6

The unit_of_measurement and so forth is set here esphome/sensor.py at a8ceeaa7b0616b132091f2fcd1d02c137238e4d8 · esphome/esphome · GitHub

I suspect you haven’t properly over-ridden the 60s default. Or actually compiled and uploaded your code.

#7

Thanks, but…

(Note: This Raspberry Pi is running hassio) I did not see the file sensor.py, so I cd’ed to the root directory and did a ‘find . -name “sensor.py” -print’ and nothing was returned. I looked in the folder /root/config/esphome/.esphome/build and a see a folder named luxsensor. However, almost all of the files in this folder are source code.A quick glance at main.cpp shows the IP address, but nothing else jumped out. I cannot find a folder named esphome/components. I then tried ‘grep -rnw . -e “UNIT_LUX”’ and that too returned nothing. Now what?

Also, I am quite certain that the code was compiled and uploaded because from the device name on the ESP page, I selected (three dots)->Install->Wirelessly, watched it build and upload the code…

#8

I recently un-MQTT’d my sleeping ESP devices. It didn’t make sense to add MQTT just for convincing my device to go into OTA mode.

#9

Is it updating home assistant every second, or is that just the internal workings of the esp C++ code. It is conceivable that the esp gets a value every second, but only passes it on to HA every 60 or 90s.

#10

nickrout - thanks for the reply, but…

  • I have no idea how to adjust the C++ code to reset the time - no idea which parameter to change or if such a change would impact every ESP device.
  • More importantly, when I go to the ESPHome UI page and click luxsensor->Logs, I see it updating the value every second. As such, I suspect that it is sending data every second.
#11

I removed the deep_sleep stuff from the yaml file, changed the update_interval to 90s, and watching the log, only one data point was sent every 90 seconds. This issue seems to be resolved. Now, if I could just figure out how to use the sensor value as a trigger, or condition, in an automation…

#12

Do you mean an esphome automation or a HA automation?

#13

I wasn’t even aware of the fact that there are two kinds of automatons! However, I suspect that this needs to be a HA automation because the switch to be controlled is not an ESP device.

#14

Well just the same as any other automation then.