MQTT cover or sensor

Configuration
1

I’m about to put together a rather simple device to measure whether a door is open or closed and report it to HA. Will use a Wemos D1 or equivalent and a magnetic read switch, but the question I have is whether it is better to set this up as a sensor or a cover?

All the sketches I have come across seem to be using Cover but they also seem to be doing more then I want as well, like opening a blind or garage door. Will sensor work sufficiently? I already have a couple of those working with temp and humidity around the house. I’m kind of assuming a simple read switch would be the same setup basically?

2

You can find inforation in the docs about this but basically a cover is to control rollershutter, garage door, etc. You’ll need to be looking at a binary sensor.

3

Thanks, I thought cover was not the right choice for what I was trying to achieve.

Binary Sensor is exactly what I was looking for, not sensor.

Cheers,

4

Hi ,first thanks for that topic,I found pretty much everything needed here.
I’m trying to make wifi signal strength sensor in HA using “wifi device”,but no success so far.
In ESPeasy log I see the readings every minute ,but I don’t know what state topic to subscribe for in HA
Is there any way to listen Nodemcu messages ?
Thanks in advance.

5

I find that if you run this line in a SSH session with something like Putty, you’ll find out what MQTT topics are being sent out. The ip address should be replaced with your device running the mqtt broker. In my case it is my raspberry pi on 192.168.1.113 for example

mosquitto_sub -v -h (ipaddress) -u username -P password -t '#'

This is the result I get when I do this

sensor/bathroom/temperature 18.80
sensor/bathroom/battery 2.94
sensor/bathroom/humidity 79.60
sensor/bathroomroom/humidity nan
sensor/backroom/temperature 18.00
sensor/backroom/humidity 62.30
sensor/backroom/battery 2.78
cmnd/sonoff/power OFF
cmnd/sonoff1/power OFF
cmnd/sonoff2/power OFF
cmnd/sonoff3/power OFF
tele/sonoff/LWT Online
tele/sonoff1/LWT Online
tele/sonoff2/LWT Online

Hope that helps

6

Thanks for fast reply.Unfortunately I am using embedded mqtt server.It says “command not found”

7

Sorry, not too sure what you’d need to type in then to see what is happening. There is some kind way to view from the broker what it is subscribing to.

Anyone else have any ideas?

8

wificonfig
wificonfig1366×768 59.5 KB

log
log1366×768 72.3 KB

That is ESP Easy config page and log
I am listening on # topic with my android device and It does not send any messages to the broker except gpio 14 load and state.

platform: mqtt
state_topic: "/sensor/wifi"
name: "EspWifi"
qos: 0
unit_of_measurement: "dB"

This is sensor config file.

9

Your log seems to indicated that the ESP is subscribed to /ESP_Easy, not /sensor/WiFi as in your config. Check your MQTT status topic in ESPEasy to make sure they match up…