User Presence Detection, but with Sensor Entity

Configuration
1

Hello,

I’ve configured espresense to track iBeacons:

sensor:
  - platform: mqtt_room
    name: "x"
    device_id: "x"
    state_topic: "x"
    away_timeout: x

This works like a charm, though I can’t assign this sensor entity to a person. It seems only device entities can be assigned:

image
image890×315 19.4 KB

Does anyone know how can the sensor entity be used with users, or perhaps a way of converting it into a device, so it can be assigned to users?

UPDATE: Here’s the final solution, with templating to work in a single automation:

alias: "Presence: Beacons"
description: ""
trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id:
      - sensor.charlie_beacon
      - sensor.foxtrotdelta_beacon
      - sensor.mikedelta_beacon
    enabled: true
condition: []
action:
  - service: device_tracker.see
    data:
      dev_id: "{{ trigger.entity_id.split('.')[1] }}"
      location_name: |
        {% set locations = ['hallway', 'living_room', 'work_room'] %}
        {% if trigger.to_state.state in locations  %}
          home
        {% elif trigger.to_state.state not in locations %}
          not_home
        {% else %}
           unknown
        {% endif %}
      source_type: router
mode: restart
1 Like
2

The person entity connects to device trackers whereas these are mqtt rooms (Person - Home Assistant)

I’ve not used it with ESPresence but I use my wifi to post MQTT messages to a specific MQTT Device Tracker. There is nothing stopping you doing a similar route based on the esprence room - MQTT Device Tracker - Home Assistant

For my use case, I post to the relevant topics based on my phone connecting to our wifi as a backup to other presence sensors.

3

Looking in this thread:

I’ve created an automation that creates a device_tracker entity which updates when the sensor updates:

alias: "Presence: Beacon X"
description: ""
trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id:
      - sensor.x_beacon
condition: []
action:
  - service: device_tracker.see
    data:
      dev_id: x_beacon
      location_name: |
        {% if trigger.to_state.state == 'home' %}
          home
        {% elif trigger.to_state.state == 'not_home' %}
          not_home
        {% else %}
           unknown
        {% endif %}
      source_type: router
mode: single
max: 10

I have a few of these, and they can probably be merged into a single automation with templates, but I’m not that proficient yet with jinja.

4

sorry for digging this up, I also have ESPresence, I get a UndefinedError: ‘trigger’ is undefined
with this:

alias: Presence Giga Flo based
description: ""
trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id:
      - sensor.flo_esp_beacon
condition: []
action:
  - service: device_tracker.see
    data:
      dev_id: giga.flo
      location_name: |
        {% if trigger.to_state.state == 'home' %}
          home
        {% elif trigger.to_state.state == 'not_home' %}
          not_home
        {% else %}
           unknown
        {% endif %}
mode: single
max: 10

edit: aah wait, it has to change itself…, hmm

5

@victoroos Not sure why it doesn’t work for you, I use a bluceharm beacon

6

I was an idiot, I had two sensor “headings” in my yaml. Learning while doing this is called ^^

7

This fixed my problem, but I track by rooms not if Is_home so I ended up with this:

> alias: "Presence: Beacon Jimmy watch"
> description: ""
> trigger:
>   - platform: state
>     entity_id:
>       - sensor.jimmy_s_watch_ble
> condition: []
> action:
>   - service: device_tracker.see
>     data:
>       dev_id: jimmy_s_watch_ble
>       location_name: >
>         {% if trigger.to_state.state in ['home', 'office', 'kitchen', 'bedroom',
>         'lounge', 'ryan', 'diningroom','backhall', 'hall'] %}
>           home
>         {% elif trigger.to_state.state == 'not_home' %}
>           not_home
>         {% else %}
>           unknown_room
>         {% endif %}
>       source_type: router
> mode: single
> max: 10

Notice every “Room” that I have in espresense is listed in location_name:
So now sensor.jimmy_s_watch_ble reports the room, and device_traker:jimmy_s_watch_ble reports if it is home or not. If II add a room and forget to add it here, Ill get a presence of “unknown_room” to remind me when my device is in that room

3 Likes
8

Hi @jimmyeao,

Thanks for the great automation. Why do you use

mode: single

I thought about queuing here…

Thanks!

9

I’m not sure I remember why, only that I saw it in an example!