Hello,
I’m trying to add a few lights hooked up to esp8266 boards. After setting up the lights, I go into my integration for MQTT and find the light in the devices. However, when I go to add the second light, (uploaded the same sketch to both of the boards), there is no entity recognized by HomeAssistant for the second one. Furthermore, hitting the light button on the Lovelace UI turns on and off both lights. Are they being assigned the same MAC Address? or do I need to change the name of each of the topics for the lights so that they are different?
Hi Choice, Please check the mqtt topic of the lights. If you have given the same mqtt topic then the lights will operate as one. To distinguish lights make sure the mqtt topics are different in your sketch. Since you are using Esp8266, you can also look into custom firmwares such as tasmota and esphome.
Okay thanks, so I did change the topic for each in my sketch and it didn’t seem to do anything. Would this be easier/more reliable to set up in tasmota or esphome?
After changing mqtt topic and flashing the devices, you need to delete the mqtt automation and then restart HA. After restart re add mqtt integration again. it should fix the issue but if you face any more issuesIt would be best if you can change to tasmota or esphome. If you are beginner, i would recommend tasmota than esphome as majority of the operations can be done within the web UI. If you need any help do let us know