REST binary sensor: what should a server return?

Configuration
,
1

I’m a bit at a loss here. I want to create a binary sensor that changes state based on what a HTTP GET request returns. But what should that (JSON) response body be? {"state":"on"} is definitely not it. Here’s the relevant configuration.yaml snippet:

binary_sensor:
  - platform: rest
    name: living_room_lights
    device_class: light
    resource: http://192.168.178.191:8000/lights
    scan_interval: 300

Must I use a value_template?

2

Often you don’t control what is returned by the rest call, which is when value_template is needed to convert the returned value to on or off.

If you do control what is returned, according to the documentation, you can return anything like the following:

The JSON messages can contain different values like 1 , "1" , TRUE , true , on , or open

If you want to return something else, use value_template to turn it into one of the above.

3

I didn’t consider these values to be bare values. But they are. I guess I would have worded it differently. Thanks!