Setup:
I have binary mqtt sensor which goes regularly to deep sleep (esp32 wakeup on input - which is selfmade pir with an am312 on battery). This PIR sensor only sends “on” commands, but no “offs” - I use the delay_off function of the mqtt binary sensor.
I have two minor problems with the binary mqtt sensor:
It requires an availability topic - I didn’t implement one so I need to “activate” the sensor manually by sending a manual mqtt message “online” with “retain option” - I don’t like that approach. Btw. I cant’ send a last will & testament message, because the sensor is more or less always in sleep mode. Tricky …?!
Is there any good solution for this situation in HA?
If I reboot HA I was able to see that the sensor goes first to on state after the delay_off of 300 seconds (which is my value at the time) it goes off.
Any chance to trigger the sensor to “off” after reboot? Otherwise, my light will always switch on after reboot … which quite funny but nonsense.
Totally different topic:
I recognized that HA is using the “name” attribute for the automation references. like entity_id: switch.bathroom_small_ventilator. On my HA dashboard I see now this “ugly” description bathroom_small_ventilator:
I want to translate it to another language.
I want to give it a nicer name.
How can I do this and not disturbing the automation references?
Many thanks for your help. I really appreciate your effort in helping me understand HA better!
@anon43302295: In this case, I don’t understand how you should configure a PIR sensor with a binary sensor mqtt in HA. I think not every PIR sensor has a “topic” that sends online/offline state on the market, right?
(For my case it’s simple, I can just write my on c++ code and change the esp32 code to whatever I like to, but I’m a little bit astonished that there is no other way to do it in HA.)
@anon43302295: I thought this “required” in the docs force me to use it. Sorry, my fault. Everything is running fine now without the “availability” snippet. Many many thanks!