Reporting Switch Status with allowing it to be changed

ESPHome
1

Hello,
Im using a Somoff TH10 to monitor the humidity in my bathroom, and then turn on/off a fan based on the humidity reported.

This is working fine, and, if I wish I can turn on/off the fan manually in Homeassistant, or via the switch on the sonoff.
However, I don’t want to actually publish the switch on HA, as I don’t want the option to turn off the fan - want to ensure it stays on and cannot be turned off until the humidity returns to the correct levels, but I do want to know the status of the fan in HA - i.e. whether it is on or off.

I’ve tried creating a binary sensor to report the status, but that stopped the switch working, and I also tried adding a template switch to the config - this I could not get to work either. What is the most applicable method to accomplish this?

Secondly, if, for example esphome has switched on the fan because the humidity has risen to the trigger level, but I manually switch it off with the toggle button, on the next scheduled status push (every 10 seconds in my case), the fan does not turn back on automatically. To reset this behaviour I need to restart the sonoff again. This is a small niggle, but I’m curious as to why this might be happening.
Thank you fir any input in advance. Please find attached relevant code below pertaining to the switch and fan.

switch:
  - platform: gpio
    name: "Bathroom Fan"
    pin: GPIO12
    id: relay
 
sensor:
  - platform: dht
    pin: GPIO14
    model: SI7021
    temperature:
      name: "Bathroom Temperature"
    humidity:
      name: "Bathroom Humidity"
      on_value_range:
        - above: 75.0
          then:
            - switch.turn_on: relay
        - below: 72.0
          then:
            - switch.turn_off: relay
    update_interval: 10s
2

First issue is easy to solve:

switch:
  - platform: gpio
    internal: true    #### <----- This is what you want
    name: "Bathroom Fan"
    pin: GPIO12
    id: relay

Edit: oh and this (for sending the state to HA):

binary_sensor:
  - platform: template
    name: "Fan state"
    # icon: mdi:fan # EDIT: actually it looks like this is not supported. Use Customize in home assistant to set the icon
    lambda: |-
      if (id(relay).state == 'on') {
        return true;
      } else {
        return false;
      }

Not sure about your second issue. Let me think about it.

3

Tom,
Sincere thanks for your reply - I’ll give that a shot.

Kind regards
Ger

4

Tom,
Your first suggestion worked perfectly.
Thank you for your assistance.

Kind regards
Ger