Packstation fill level integration including visualisation cards

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Hi, I just published my Packstation fill level integration for general use, in case somebody else has the need for it. Enjoy.

cheers, Florian

Home Assistant custom integration for the statistical Packstation capacity forecast provided by the official DHL Location Finder API.

Important

DHL does not expose a live fill level. The API supplies weekday-based statistical forecasts derived from previous weeks.

Features

  • Official DHL Location Finder API
  • Configuration through Home Assistant’s UI
  • Multiple Packstations supported
  • Forecast for today plus seven weekday entities
  • Localized states in German and English
  • Last successful update sensor
  • Manual refresh button
  • Three bundled Lovelace layouts: full, compact and row
  • No dependency on button-card or card-mod

Installation with HACS

  1. Open HACS.
  2. Open Custom repositories.
  3. Add https://github.com/loungelizard2018/ha-dhl-packstation as category Integration.
  4. Download the latest release.
  5. Restart Home Assistant completely.
  6. Open Settings → Devices & services → Add integration.
  7. Search for DHL Packstation Capacity.

Obtain a DHL API key

This integration requires a free DHL Developer API key.

  1. Create or sign in to a DHL Developer account.
  2. Create an application in the DHL Developer Portal.
  3. Subscribe the application to the Location Finder API.
  4. Copy the generated API key.
  5. Enter the key during integration setup in Home Assistant.

Official documentation: DHL Location Finder API

The API key is sent only to DHL. Home Assistant diagnostics redact it.

Configuration

The setup dialog asks for:

  • DHL API key
  • country code, normally DE
  • postal code
  • Packstation number
  • optional display name

The values are validated against DHL before they are saved. Open the integration entry and select Configure to change the station, display name, API key or update interval later.

Entities

Each configured Packstation creates ten entities:

Entity Purpose
Capacity forecast today Forecast for the current local weekday
Forecast Monday Monday forecast
Forecast Tuesday Tuesday forecast
Forecast Wednesday Wednesday forecast
Forecast Thursday Thursday forecast
Forecast Friday Friday forecast
Forecast Saturday Saturday forecast
Forecast Sunday Sunday forecast
Last update Timestamp of the last successful DHL request
Refresh now Manual API refresh

Entity IDs are generated by Home Assistant and can differ between installations. Use the entity marked with the attribute data_type: average_capacity_by_weekday for the Lovelace card.

Forecast states

Internal state English UI German UI Card color
high Many free compartments Viele freie Fächer Green
low Few free compartments Wenige freie Fächer Yellow
very_low Almost full Fast voll Red
unknown No forecast Keine Prognose Gray

Lovelace card

The integration bundles custom:dhl-packstation-card and registers it as a JavaScript module.

Full view

type: custom:dhl-packstation-card entity: sensor.your_packstation_capacity_forecast_today view: full

Optional map button and custom title:

type: custom:dhl-packstation-card entity: sensor.your_packstation_capacity_forecast_today view: full name: Packstation Odendorf show_map: true

Full view

Compact view

type: custom:dhl-packstation-card entity: sensor.your_packstation_capacity_forecast_today view: compact

Compact view

Row view

type: custom:dhl-packstation-card entity: sensor.your_packstation_capacity_forecast_today view: row show_status_text: true

Hide the text and keep only the colored status indicator:

type: custom:dhl-packstation-card entity: sensor.your_packstation_capacity_forecast_today view: row show_status_text: false

row view

The card automatically falls back to the correct current-day entity if an older dashboard still references one of the weekday entities from a previous prerelease.

Automation example

alias: Packstation forecast is good triggers: - trigger: state entity_id: sensor.your_packstation_capacity_forecast_today to: high actions: - action: notify.mobile_app_your_phone data: title: Packstation message: DHL forecasts many free compartments today. mode: single

Card resource troubleshooting

If Home Assistant reports Custom element doesn't exist: dhl-packstation-card, verify that this JavaScript module exists under Settings → Dashboards → Resources:

/dhl_packstation_static/dhl-packstation-card.js?v=<installed-version>

After updating:

  1. Restart Home Assistant completely.
  2. Hard-refresh the browser.
  3. Close and reopen the mobile app.
  4. Remove obsolete duplicate resources referencing older versions.

Existing entity names after an upgrade

Home Assistant can retain names or entity IDs from an earlier prerelease in its entity registry. The integration keeps stable unique IDs, so automations continue to work. To restore the integration-provided name, open the entity settings and clear any manually stored name.

Privacy and limitations

  • No live compartment occupancy is available through this API.
  • Forecast quality and available weekdays are controlled by DHL.
  • No analytics or telemetry are included.
  • This project is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by DHL.
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