One device works, another device can't get sensor info from HA

ESPHome
1

I’m working on a battery powered sensor project and I am using an ESP32 board with an integrated 18650 battery (ESP-Wroom-ESP32).

I have a simple YAML that connects and then tries to use the homeassistant API to get the status of a boolean helper. The board I’m working with flashes nicely and gets a connection to homeassistant, but it can’t seem to get the status of the sensor.

The strange thing is if I flash the same YAML to a different board (in this case an esp32-c3-devkitm-1) board, it works perfectly. This makes me think that it is not the YAML, but something else.

Everything compiles and both boards connect and can expose ESPHome sensors, but only the C3 board can get the helper status.

Any ideas why this may be happening?


esphome:
  name: test-device
  friendly_name: Test Device
  project:
    name: esphome.web
    version: dev
  on_boot:
    priority: -100
    then:
      - delay: 1s  # Wait for stability
      - wait_until:
          wifi.connected:
      - delay: 125s  # Give Home Assistant time to send states
      - homeassistant.service:
          service: homeassistant.update_entity
          data:
            entity_id: input_boolean.esp_prevent_sleep
      - delay: 3s

esp32:
  board: wemosbat
  framework:
    type: arduino

# Enable logging
logger:
  level: DEBUG

# Enable Home Assistant API
api:
  encryption:
    key: "xxxx"

mqtt:  
  id: mqtt_cli
  broker: 192.168.1.253
  port: 1883
  clean_session: true
  username: !secret mqtt_usr
  password: !secret mqtt_pwd

ota:
  - platform: esphome
    password: "xxxxxxxxx"

wifi:
  ssid: !secret wifi_ssid
  password: !secret wifi_password

esp32_ble:
  enable_on_boot: false

binary_sensor:
  - platform: homeassistant
    id: stopSleep
    internal: true
    publish_initial_state: true
    entity_id: input_boolean.esp_prevent_sleep
    name: "Prevent Sleep"
    on_state:
      then:
        - logger.log:    
            format: "stopSleep state changed to: %s"
            args: [ 'id(stopSleep).state ? "ON" : "OFF"' ]

captive_portal:
2

Have you given one board/device permissions in HA and not the other? They’re not enabled by default.

3

Maybe that’s it… I will look into that and report back…

4

Thanks Brookben11, that was the problem. I don’t recall setting that for the other board but it did solve the problem. I think I also changed the setting but didn’t press submit.

I’m a little surprised that it is needed for just reading a value while the setting says “Allow the device to perform home assistant actions”. But I guess reading is an action.