Problem with esphome and mqtt

Configuration
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1

Hi, i am running home assistant 2025.4.3.
I addedan ESP home device that reads 2 contacts and publish the value via mqtt.
in mqtt explorer i see the values changing. I added a yaml configuration for the 2 values, based on the topics I see in mqtt explorer.

- name: "pondWaterLevelHigh"
  unique_id : pondwaterlevelhigh
  state_topic: "DUMSHOME/PondWaterLevelControler/binary_sensor/levelhigh/state"
   
- name: "pondWaterLevelLow"
  unique_id : pondwaterlevellow
  state_topic: "DUMSHOME/PondWaterLevelControler/binary_sensor/levellow/state"

In my entities i see the 2 entoties as binary_sensor.pondwaterlevelhigh and binary_sensor.pondwaterlevellow.
Fort the 2 entities, when clicking on them, I see an error “The entity is unavailable”.

I am not able the use these entities in either a dashboard, nor in an Automation.

What Am I missing here ?

2

Hello Marc,

You have control over the topics if you wrote the ESPHome sketch.

I don’t know how you set HA to read the MQTT data.

I know of 2 ways. Create an MQTT sensor to read those topics, or a better way would be to send the data from ESPHome to a discovery topic directly and HA will just find them. If you created MQTT Sensors can you share the YAML?

Either way I suggest have retain on on these values so that it will not report an error in the logs at HA or device restart.

3

I created a yaml file, and the content is in the original topic, in the code section.
When I use Settings->Devices and Services and select Entities, I see both sensors.
I also see timestamps when the value changes, but there is the error message, and I am not able to use them anywhere else

4

Where exactly?

5

in my original configuration file I have the following

mqtt: 
  sensor: !include_dir_merge_list mqtt/sensor/
  binary_sensor: !include_dir_merge_list mqtt/binary_sensor/
  switch: !include_dir_merge_list mqtt/switch/
  light: !include_dir_merge_list mqtt/light/

thus in the folder mqtt/binary_sensor/. i have a file named pondwaterlevel.yaml with this content

- name: "pondWaterLevelHigh"
  unique_id : pondwaterlevelhigh
  state_topic: "DUMSHOME/PondWaterLevelControler/binary_sensor/levelhigh/state"
   
- name: "pondWaterLevelLow"
  unique_id : pondwaterlevellow
  state_topic: "DUMSHOME/PondWaterLevelControler/binary_sensor/levellow/state"

Oh wait, I am now back from Diner, and I made a refresh, and the error is gone. What is going on here ?

6

Ok.
What does the actual data look lile, the value that ESPHome is sending to the topic.

7

Just sending plain Text, ON or OFF, no Json. It’0s the default that ESPhome is using

8

Spoted something. You have this:

mqtt: 
  sensor: !include_dir_merge_list mqtt/sensor/
  binary_sensor: !include_dir_merge_list mqtt/binary_sensor/
  switch: !include_dir_merge_list mqtt/switch/
  light: !include_dir_merge_list mqtt/light/

I think MQTT is a list of dictionaries, so you need this:

mqtt: 
  - sensor: !include_dir_merge_list mqtt/sensor/
  - binary_sensor: !include_dir_merge_list mqtt/binary_sensor/
  - switch: !include_dir_merge_list mqtt/switch/
  - light: !include_dir_merge_list mqtt/light/

This is mine: Home-Assistant-Config/configuration.yaml at b2267fc32aadaae03fbd8e5649659d4afb75d259 · SirGoodenough/Home-Assistant-Config · GitHub
and this: Home-Assistant-Config/mqtt/binary_sensor/MQTT_bs_basement.yaml at b2267fc32aadaae03fbd8e5649659d4afb75d259 · SirGoodenough/Home-Assistant-Config · GitHub

9

If it’s suddenly working, you might need

Your configuration.yaml format ie still weird, though, so not sure there.