Node Red with Home Assistant Core

Hi All,

as i could not find the answer, i’m asking for help.

I have HA Core installed and also Node Red, both working. I would like to integrate it, bu did not find the how to.

with node, i did npm install node-red-contrib-home-assistant.

How to proceed from there?

Thx for any help.

First of all don’t use node-red-contrib-home-assistant as that is the old one, instead use node-red-contrib-home-assistant-websocket. That is the palette the add-on uses now and it is much better as it uses the websockets api.

Now I use the add-on so I’m not entirely sure about what comes next but my understanding is after that you just have to fill out the configuration node. Drag any one of she shapes from that onto the screen and you should see a server field like so:
Screen Shot 2020-06-15 at 3.55.48 PM
Since you’re not using the add-on your dropdown will be blank so use the pencil icon to add a new one. It’ll ask you for details like this which you can then fill out:
Screen Shot 2020-06-15 at 3.57.09 PM
And after that I believe it should be working. Give it a shot.

thank you! and how do i access this menu?

i can open localhost:1880, but didn’t find this menu.

The server menu? So you’re seeing all these nodes in the left side palette now right? Like this:


If you drag any one of them into the flow and then double click the node to open you should see the list of servers with the option to add one.

Thx! got it.

by start, i’m getting this error:

[homeassistant.components.websocket_api.http.connection.140680592362016] Error handling message: expected str for dictionary value @ data['service']. Got None

any idea?

thx in advance

So by seeing that it sounds like you are successfully connecting and authenticating since HA is telling you that it got a bad message.

Would you mind exporting the config you’re trying from Node RED in that case? Nothing jumps out at me from the error message, think I’ll need to see the config you’re trying now.

Thx for answering.

the settings file for node-red.

root@wolke:/var/node# cat settings.js 
/**
 * Copyright JS Foundation and other contributors, http://js.foundation
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 **/

// The `https` setting requires the `fs` module. Uncomment the following
// to make it available:
//var fs = require("fs");

module.exports = {
    // the tcp port that the Node-RED web server is listening on
    uiPort: process.env.PORT || 1880,

    // By default, the Node-RED UI accepts connections on all IPv4 interfaces.
    // To listen on all IPv6 addresses, set uiHost to "::",
    // The following property can be used to listen on a specific interface. For
    // example, the following would only allow connections from the local machine.
    //uiHost: "127.0.0.1",

    // Retry time in milliseconds for MQTT connections
    mqttReconnectTime: 15000,

    // Retry time in milliseconds for Serial port connections
    serialReconnectTime: 15000,

    // Retry time in milliseconds for TCP socket connections
    //socketReconnectTime: 10000,

    // Timeout in milliseconds for TCP server socket connections
    //  defaults to no timeout
    //socketTimeout: 120000,

    // Maximum number of messages to wait in queue while attempting to connect to TCP socket
    //  defaults to 1000
    //tcpMsgQueueSize: 2000,

    // Timeout in milliseconds for HTTP request connections
    //  defaults to 120 seconds
    //httpRequestTimeout: 120000,

    // The maximum length, in characters, of any message sent to the debug sidebar tab
    debugMaxLength: 1000,

    // The maximum number of messages nodes will buffer internally as part of their
    // operation. This applies across a range of nodes that operate on message sequences.
    //  defaults to no limit. A value of 0 also means no limit is applied.
    //nodeMessageBufferMaxLength: 0,

    // To disable the option for using local files for storing keys and certificates in the TLS configuration
    //  node, set this to true
    //tlsConfigDisableLocalFiles: true,

    // Colourise the console output of the debug node
    //debugUseColors: true,

    // The file containing the flows. If not set, it defaults to flows_<hostname>.json
    //flowFile: 'flows.json',

    // To enabled pretty-printing of the flow within the flow file, set the following
    //  property to true:
    //flowFilePretty: true,

    // By default, credentials are encrypted in storage using a generated key. To
    // specify your own secret, set the following property.
    // If you want to disable encryption of credentials, set this property to false.
    // Note: once you set this property, do not change it - doing so will prevent
    // node-red from being able to decrypt your existing credentials and they will be
    // lost.
    //credentialSecret: "a-secret-key",

    // By default, all user data is stored in a directory called `.node-red` under
    // the user's home directory. To use a different location, the following
    // property can be used
    userDir: '/var/node/',

    // Node-RED scans the `nodes` directory in the userDir to find local node files.
    // The following property can be used to specify an additional directory to scan.
    //nodesDir: '/home/nol/.node-red/nodes',

    // By default, the Node-RED UI is available at http://localhost:1880/
    // The following property can be used to specify a different root path.
    // If set to false, this is disabled.
    //httpAdminRoot: '/admin',

    // Some nodes, such as HTTP In, can be used to listen for incoming http requests.
    // By default, these are served relative to '/'. The following property
    // can be used to specifiy a different root path. If set to false, this is
    // disabled.
    //httpNodeRoot: '/red-nodes',

    // The following property can be used in place of 'httpAdminRoot' and 'httpNodeRoot',
    // to apply the same root to both parts.
    //httpRoot: '/red',

    // When httpAdminRoot is used to move the UI to a different root path, the
    // following property can be used to identify a directory of static content
    // that should be served at http://localhost:1880/.
    //httpStatic: '/home/nol/node-red-static/',

    // The maximum size of HTTP request that will be accepted by the runtime api.
    // Default: 5mb
    //apiMaxLength: '5mb',

    // If you installed the optional node-red-dashboard you can set it's path
    // relative to httpRoot
    //ui: { path: "ui" },

    // Securing Node-RED
    // -----------------
    // To password protect the Node-RED editor and admin API, the following
    // property can be used. See http://nodered.org/docs/security.html for details.
    //adminAuth: {
    //    type: "credentials",
    //    users: [{
    //        username: "admin",
    //        password: "$2a$08$zZWtXTja0fB1pzD4sHCMyOCMYz2Z6dNbM6tl8sJogENOMcxWV9DN.",
    //        permissions: "*"
    //    }]
    //},

    // To password protect the node-defined HTTP endpoints (httpNodeRoot), or
    // the static content (httpStatic), the following properties can be used.
    // The pass field is a bcrypt hash of the password.
    // See http://nodered.org/docs/security.html#generating-the-password-hash
    //httpNodeAuth: {user:"user",pass:"$2a$08$zZWtXTja0fB1pzD4sHCMyOCMYz2Z6dNbM6tl8sJogENOMcxWV9DN."},
    //httpStaticAuth: {user:"user",pass:"$2a$08$zZWtXTja0fB1pzD4sHCMyOCMYz2Z6dNbM6tl8sJogENOMcxWV9DN."},

    // The following property can be used to enable HTTPS
    // See http://nodejs.org/api/https.html#https_https_createserver_options_requestlistener
    // for details on its contents.
    // See the comment at the top of this file on how to load the `fs` module used by
    // this setting.
    //
    //https: {
    //    key: fs.readFileSync('privatekey.pem'),
    //    cert: fs.readFileSync('certificate.pem')
    //},

    // The following property can be used to cause insecure HTTP connections to
    // be redirected to HTTPS.
    //requireHttps: true,

    // The following property can be used to disable the editor. The admin API
    // is not affected by this option. To disable both the editor and the admin
    // API, use either the httpRoot or httpAdminRoot properties
    //disableEditor: false,

    // The following property can be used to configure cross-origin resource sharing
    // in the HTTP nodes.
    // See https://github.com/troygoode/node-cors#configuration-options for
    // details on its contents. The following is a basic permissive set of options:
    //httpNodeCors: {
    //    origin: "*",
    //    methods: "GET,PUT,POST,DELETE"
    //},

    // If you need to set an http proxy please set an environment variable
    // called http_proxy (or HTTP_PROXY) outside of Node-RED in the operating system.
    // For example - http_proxy=http://myproxy.com:8080
    // (Setting it here will have no effect)
    // You may also specify no_proxy (or NO_PROXY) to supply a comma separated
    // list of domains to not proxy, eg - no_proxy=.acme.co,.acme.co.uk

    // The following property can be used to add a custom middleware function
    // in front of all http in nodes. This allows custom authentication to be
    // applied to all http in nodes, or any other sort of common request processing.
    //httpNodeMiddleware: function(req,res,next) {
    //    // Handle/reject the request, or pass it on to the http in node by calling next();
    //    // Optionally skip our rawBodyParser by setting this to true;
    //    //req.skipRawBodyParser = true;
    //    next();
    //},

    // The following property can be used to pass custom options to the Express.js
    // server used by Node-RED. For a full list of available options, refer
    // to http://expressjs.com/en/api.html#app.settings.table
    //httpServerOptions: { },

    // The following property can be used to verify websocket connection attempts.
    // This allows, for example, the HTTP request headers to be checked to ensure
    // they include valid authentication information.
    //webSocketNodeVerifyClient: function(info) {
    //    // 'info' has three properties:
    //    //   - origin : the value in the Origin header
    //    //   - req : the HTTP request
    //    //   - secure : true if req.connection.authorized or req.connection.encrypted is set
    //    //
    //    // The function should return true if the connection should be accepted, false otherwise.
    //    //
    //    // Alternatively, if this function is defined to accept a second argument, callback,
    //    // it can be used to verify the client asynchronously.
    //    // The callback takes three arguments:
    //    //   - result : boolean, whether to accept the connection or not
    //    //   - code : if result is false, the HTTP error status to return
    //    //   - reason: if result is false, the HTTP reason string to return
    //},

    // The following property can be used to seed Global Context with predefined
    // values. This allows extra node modules to be made available with the
    // Function node.
    // For example,
    //    functionGlobalContext: { os:require('os') }
    // can be accessed in a function block as:
    //    global.get("os")
    functionGlobalContext: {
        // os:require('os'),
        // jfive:require("johnny-five"),
        // j5board:require("johnny-five").Board({repl:false})
    },
    // `global.keys()` returns a list of all properties set in global context.
    // This allows them to be displayed in the Context Sidebar within the editor.
    // In some circumstances it is not desirable to expose them to the editor. The
    // following property can be used to hide any property set in `functionGlobalContext`
    // from being list by `global.keys()`.
    // By default, the property is set to false to avoid accidental exposure of
    // their values. Setting this to true will cause the keys to be listed.
    exportGlobalContextKeys: false,


    // Context Storage
    // The following property can be used to enable context storage. The configuration
    // provided here will enable file-based context that flushes to disk every 30 seconds.
    // Refer to the documentation for further options: https://nodered.org/docs/api/context/
    //
    //contextStorage: {
    //    default: {
    //        module:"localfilesystem"
    //    },
    //},

    // The following property can be used to order the categories in the editor
    // palette. If a node's category is not in the list, the category will get
    // added to the end of the palette.
    // If not set, the following default order is used:
    //paletteCategories: ['subflows', 'common', 'function', 'network', 'sequence', 'parser', 'storage'],

    // Configure the logging output
    logging: {
        // Only console logging is currently supported
        console: {
            // Level of logging to be recorded. Options are:
            // fatal - only those errors which make the application unusable should be recorded
            // error - record errors which are deemed fatal for a particular request + fatal errors
            // warn - record problems which are non fatal + errors + fatal errors
            // info - record information about the general running of the application + warn + error + fatal errors
            // debug - record information which is more verbose than info + info + warn + error + fatal errors
            // trace - record very detailed logging + debug + info + warn + error + fatal errors
            // off - turn off all logging (doesn't affect metrics or audit)
            level: "info",
            // Whether or not to include metric events in the log output
            metrics: false,
            // Whether or not to include audit events in the log output
            audit: false
        }
    },

    // Customising the editor
    editorTheme: {
        projects: {
            // To enable the Projects feature, set this value to true
            enabled: false
        }
    }
}

is this the file?

Oh sorry no I meant the node red flow you’re trying. I don’t think its a problem with your environmental settings, I think there’s something with the actual config of the node. If you highlight the nodes in Node RED you can go the menu in the top right and do export
Screen Shot 2020-06-15 at 9.08.45 PM

Then you can paste in the JSON so I can import it and see the config.

I didn’t try any flow yet, as i’m installing the components and making it work together, before any further configuration…

as soon i start it, i’ll come back to this topic.

thx for helping this newbie :wink:

Installed node-red-contrib-home-assistant-websocket but i don’t see this “home assistant”, something more is required or am i looking in the wrong place?