Set HA sensor value as value on rotary encoder

ESPHome
1

I’d like to use a rotary encoder as a volume knob.

I have the following sensor that gets the volume level from my sonos:

  - platform: homeassistant
    id: media_volume
    entity_id: media_player.symfonisk
    attribute: volume_level
    internal: true

From the documentation I understood that I can set the certain value to a rotary encoder. However, If I add this:

    on_value:
      then:
      - sensor.the_encoder.publish:
        id: the_encoder
        value: !lambda '(id(media_volume).state*100);'

An error occurs:

Unable to find action with the name ‘sensor.the_encoder.publish’.

Even though I copied it literally from the documentation, so I am a bit confused what I’m doing wrong here. could anyone tell me what I am doing wrong and how I can fix it? Thanks!

2

Are you trying to push values to a esphome (internal) sensor called media_volume? That will not work to change the volume for a ha connected device :thinking:

The best solution might be just to de- or increment the volume with ha service calls directly with a code like this:

sensor:
  - platform: rotary_encoder
    ...
    on_clockwise:
      - homeassistant.service:
          service: media_player.volume_up
          data:
            entity_id: media_player.sonos_xyz
    on_anticlockwise:
      - homeassistant.service:
          service: media_player.volume_down
          data:
            entity_id: media_player.sonos_xyz
3

Actually I think he is trying to synchronise the volume in HA to the number in the rotary encoder. Otherwise when you, for example, reboot the esp, it resets the volume level.

4

That is exactly what I would like to achieve. The knob already works, but it stands on my desk. But if I change the volume from HA itself for example, then the value of the rotary encoder is not the same anymore as the volume level of my Sonos.

5

Where are you using this value?
Is it on a display?

Perhaps you could set up a number in esphome instead that is updated with the value from the speaker and use this instead of the encoder value?

6

I have a screen salvaged from an ender 3 printer, which also includes a rotary encoder. I am programming it to use it as an interface for Home-Assistant on my desk. So I can quickly change the volume and see which song is playing.

I’ve come to the conclusion that what I initially had in mind is not useful and necessary. In the future I would like to use the rotary encoder for other tasks, like select inputs, playlists, etc. That won’t work if the encoder has a certain value set or is continuously updated.

7

That’s why the best is to not even “try” to synchronize the two entities but just use the one “truth” (the ha volume) and only in-/decrement it with (anti)clockwise values from the rotary encoder like in the example I posted.

For that reason don’t try to have two truth’ but go with a solution that just works :tm: like presented earlier

Again this just raises complexity unnecessary. Because this just works :tm: with ha it’s no problem to show the volume level directly on the display and use the rotary encoder only to send service calls to de/increment volume. Winner winner chicken dinner :chicken:

Might be worth a shot to see what other people doing already - for example:

or: SONOS/SYMFONISK Display example - ControllerX

https://xaviml.github.io/controllerx/assets/tutorials/sonos_displays_1.jpg(image larger than 3 MB)

1 Like
8

Quite right. IIRC on_clockwise was not a thing when I first set mine up.