Node-Red, NR-Companion, ESPhome question

Third party integrations Node-RED
1

Hello,
i’m a Beginner in HA, Node-Red and …
I installed HAOS on Raspberry pi. I installed and configure mqtt and my first ESP-D1Mini what i configure with ESPhome works in HA very well.

Now i try the Node-Red and would like understand this all better, because i get some courios things
the first what i create in HA was a ESPhome-Device D1-Mini with DHT22 and a LED dim function.
This works fine and the talking over mqtt too.

when I connect in Node-Red e.g.
Timer===>ESPhome-D1Mini
or
mqtt(getting data from an ESPhome-D1Mini)===>debug-node
create

this is how it works there in the Node-Red area.
The logs show everything, e.g. the debug output shows that a light was switched on, I get the temperature of the sensor on the ESP in the debug output, so everything seems ok.
But I don’t see the entity in the Node-Red Companion under Integrations (I only see 1 entity there (NR-Companion).

Here’s what I did (I didn’t have Node-Red Companion installed yet):

  1. I had configured the ESP with its sensors and the control of LEDs via ESPhome
    This then also appeared under “Integrations” as ESPhome with its 6 integrities
    I was thus able to further edit the ESP, e.g. that it can be seen and used in the dashboard (everything works)
  2. I then wanted to try Node-Red and created connections there again
    mqtt-esphomeD1mini-with-topic===>debug-node
    it also worked and I can now see the sensor values ​​there or whether the light is on or off (the light is currently switched manually in the integration window!)
    At this point I had NOT installed Node-Red Companion.
    It is currently installed.
    However, I only see 1 entity under Node-Red Companion in the integration window

Now i create a bigTimer in Node-Red like that
3xincetNode(LED-on,off,auto)===>BigTimer===>ESPhome-D1-Mini-LED-and-Sensors(and a debug-node)
Now I’m wondering.
Apparently all the nodes I created in Node-red had no effect on my existing ESPhome-device with its sensors. But if i switch on/off/auto the incets nodes from the BigTimer then i get all state and all debug.-outputs correctly… but the LED not do anything… no switch off or on …

As the?

2

I think you might confuse some of the nodes in NodeRed.
An inject node is something that is triggered from within NodeRed.
If you want to react to events in HAt then you need a node like Trigger State.
A debug node is similarly only something that exist in NodeRed för debugging purposes.
If you want data from a flow to be available in HA them you need to feed the flow result into one of the sensor nodes available.

3

It exactly what you say.
I’m a beginner and I don’t quite understand how the Node-Red components work together.
If I create a device in ESPhome that communicates with HA via mqtt with sensors, LEDs that are dimmable, I see this immediately in the integrations and I can switch LEDs, dim them and get sensor values.
Currently I would like to add a BigTimer as a timer for the ESP with the LEDs and thought I would just use Node-Red.
So that I can also switch the timer manually, I thought of this configuration
incetNode-On===>BigTimer===>ESPhome-LED
In Node-Red it looks like everything is ok. But nothing happens. The BigTimer only switches virtually here, but the ESP doesn’t care.

So I didn’t even begin to understand the interaction. I need an example here to see that… then I can imagine it better and it clicks in my head…
Can you please help me with this?

edit:
because later sure i would like use the BigTimer in my HA Dashboard for configure it. I don’t want that i have to go in node-red everytime only to can change any switching-time