The “full script” is already posted above. If you want to make a device with multiple entities, each entity you create (via MQTT Discovery) should use the same device information.
“each entity you create (via MQTT Discovery) should use the same device information.”
Man it is easy … if you know what you are doing!! THANKS!!!
Amazing fast reply as well!! 
Does that script still work in the current version to manually add mqtt devices. Now when you go to Configuration>Scripts you can only click the scripts wording which looks like it may refresh the script.
Yes.
Thanks for the above, worked great for me. One thing i’m struggling with is applying a state value template, i’m trying to convert the incoming watt hour value to kWh with this…
"state_value_template": "{{ value.state | multiply(0.001) }}",
but this isnt working so must be formatting it incorrectly, can anyone help? The incoming data is not a json.
Thanks!
"state_value_template": {% raw %}"{{ value.state | float(0) | multiply(0.001) }}"{% endraw %},
1 Like
Just adding my experience…
I have finally converted my 83 mqtt entities to this script technique (thanks Taras@123).
Mqtt startup time was cut down from 30+ seconds to around 10 seconds.
What I like about this, is that I am able to create devices in HA with this.
Some of my devices have webservers, so by using the configuration_url in the device parameters list, I can now go to HA for that device and click on the URL and it takes me to that device’s web page 
.
The one downside for me (and its not a biggy) is that with YAML, I can add comments to various config parameters, whereas with this approach I don’t think there is a way to add comments for JSON structured data. So I’ll leave my YAML file laying around in case I need to refer to it later on.
The hardest part is trying to debug any mistakes in the script’s mqtt payload JSON data. I set the mqtt component logger to debug for starters. If there are no JSON decoder errors, then the debug output should be able to tell you what may be wrong. If the error indicates a JSON decoding error, then it can be quite challenging to figure out. One thing that helped a little was to “snoop” on that particular MQTT discovery topic to see what the payload looks like. If I couldn’t figure it out this way, then worse case was start eliminating lines in the JSON data until the JSON decoding error disappears.
Here are some errors I came across.
-
00won’t parse. Must be single digit0. - unique-id/object-id can not contain a “.” . For Insteon users, 26.aa.bb not allowed.
- For
deviceparameters, “identifiers” or “connections” is required. Otherwise get:
error - Device must have at least one identifying value in ‘identifiers’
and/or ‘connections’ for dictionary value @ data[‘device’]. - For a given JSON key-value pair make sure the value itself doesn’t have a double-quote inside the already double-quoted value. For example:
{% raw %}"{% if value == "3" -%}active{%- else -%}inactive{%- endif %}"{% endraw %}will run into errors because the 3 is double-quoted, so change it to single-quotes'3'. - Last JSON elements in a list can not have a comma “
,” . For the example below (taken from above),"sw_version": "1.X"is the last element in the device list, anddevice {...}is the last element in the list, and they should not have a comma.
.....
"unique_id": "x10_pool_pump_switch",
"device": {
"identifiers": ["x10"],
"name": "X10 CM11A",
"model": "CM11A",
"manufacturer": "X10",
"sw_version": "1.X"
}
}
Finally, when HA receives a published mqtt discovery message, it does not store all of this data in non-volatile memory. It creates the entities and devices which are stored in one of its .storage/core.xxx files`, but it does not store topics and other parameters. To solve this, one can simply publish the mqtt discovery message with the retain flag set to true as shown earlier in this thread. This way when HA restarts, HA will subscribe to the discovery topic and MQTT will replay all the retained data. An alternative that I have tried out and it is working, is to not retain the data in mqtt, but replay the script(s) at HA startup time using an automation.
Hi
Thank you @123 and @wmaker for your input on the mqtt discovery info.
Im trying to add a second sensor to a device but it keeps replacing the previous added sensor.
Im not sure what Im doing wrong.
service: mqtt.publish
data:
topic: homeassistant/sensor/12B978/config
retain: false
payload: >-
{ "device_class": "temperature", "name": "Internal Temp", "state_topic":
"Afterburner12B978/sts/TempBody", "unit_of_measurement": "°C", "unique_id":
"12B978", "device": { "identifiers": ["afterburner"], "name":
"AfterBurner", "model": "4KW", "manufacturer": "MRJones",
"configuration_url": "http://192.168.1.31", "sw_version": "3.4.7" }}
qos: '0'
What works for me is to create a new sensor (also new unique_id/topic) but copy-n-paste the same device info from the original to the new one. If that doesn’t work, maybe show what both of your configs look like.
Hi Tommy
That explains it then, I was using the same topic id for both sensors.
Thank you
sorry to bump this, but it comes closest to what I am looking for… please help me get a step further?
Having many existing devices, eg via Zwave, to which I want to add several ‘day_start’ sensors, so they appear in the devices overview.
lets take a Zwave device Audio Gym:
this has a device_id
I learned via Tinkerer in Discord, I can ‘fake’ discovery on those, so I can set the discovery topic and tie the following (now standalone) Mqtt sensors to this device:
- unique_id: audio_gym_power_daystart
state_topic: ha_main/sensor/audio_gym/power_daystart
name: Audio Gym power daystart
<<: *power
- unique_id: audio_gym_usage_daystart
state_topic: ha_main/sensor/audio_gym/usage_daystart
name: Audio Gym usage daystart
<<: *energy
these sensors are updated daily (…) via an automation, and I have about 35 of those sets.
- alias: Set daystart sensors
id: set_daystart_sensors
trigger:
platform: time
at: '00:00:01'
action:
service: python_script.record_daystart
I understand I need to automate a topic publication and retain that, so it needs to be done only once.
Tara’s example above creates a full device, but I only need to add these 2 sensors to the existing device.
what am I supposed to publish exactly… and which of the map options should I use: MQTT Sensor - Home Assistant
Ofc, If I need to change those daystart sensors themselves, please let me know, because they have no other dependencies currently.
I also have another option to create those daystart sensors, and that is without a python script , but use this core Ha script:
script:
publish_sensor_daystart_values:
alias: Publish sensor daystart values
sequence:
- variables:
switches: >
{{expand('switch.z_wave_switches',
'switch.dorm_studenten','switch.symfonisk_dining')
|map(attribute='object_id')|list}}
- repeat:
count: >
{{switches|count}}
sequence:
- variables:
oid: >
{{switches[repeat.index - 1]}}
actueel: >
sensor.{{oid}}_actueel
totaal: >
sensor.{{oid}}_totaal
- service: mqtt.publish
data:
topic: >
ha_main/sensor/{{oid}}/power_daystart
payload_template: >
{{states(actueel)}}
qos: 2
retain: true
- service: mqtt.publish
data:
topic: >
ha_main/sensor/{{oid}}/usage_daystart
payload_template: >
{{states(totaal)}}
qos: 2
retain: true
maybe that would make things easier?
the device_registry for this device is:
{
"config_entries": [
"62213aa5a398677a26e1a3354a861183"
],
"connections": [],
"identifiers": [
[
"zwave_js",
"3967834106-71-271:1538:4099"
],
[
"zwave_js",
"3967834106-71"
]
],
"manufacturer": "Fibargroup",
"model": "FGWP102",
"name": "Metered Wall Plug Switch",
"sw_version": "3.2",
"hw_version": null,
"entry_type": null,
"id": "93991b3640262c0fa3a7c9b96342513c",
"via_device_id": null,
"area_id": "gym",
"name_by_user": "Audio Gym",
"disabled_by": null,
"configuration_url": null
}
seems the topic/payload should be:
device: ha_main/sensor/audio_gym
payload: >
{"identifiers": ["93991b3640262c0fa3a7c9b96342513c","Audio Gym"],
"name":"Metered Wall Plug Switch",
"manufacturer": "Fibargroup",
"model": "FGWP102"}
in topic publish window:
if I do that, MQTT sees this:
and there is no tie in at all…
I can add the device_id to the key in the entity_registry of these sensors manually, immediate effect:
now how to do that from within the UI, or backend automation…
2 Likes
Did you ever figure this out? Is the only way to tie an entity to an existing (non-MQTT) device by manually editing the entity registry?
sorry, no, I havent explored any further, just create my sensors and they are not tied in to those devices
Hey All
I’m trying to add the MQTT manual but I’m not wining. It’s for our generator.
How will I add it to my Configuration file?
You’d be best off starting a new topic. Take a look at the docs here, and in the new topic post the properly-formatted YAML code of what you tried and what error you’re getting.