WTH can't we have a Binary Sensor with Yes or No

Month of "What the heck?!"
1

I realize that this has come up multiple times and likely isn’t the right section to ask in. But if you don’t ask, you don’t get :slight_smile:

Could you look into creating a simple binary sensor in ESPHome that returns Yes or No ( instead of On or Off ) to Home Assistant ?

Thanks for all the great work you do

2

Are you asking for a binary sensor whose actual state is “Yes/No” or a new device class for binary sensors so that the frontend representation is “Yes/No”? The latter is probably more likely to be acted on… I’m not sure, but the former is probably against the current architecture guidelines.

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3

I may not get the terminology right. But I’m thinking the former

In my scenario, I use an ultrasonic sensor to determine if a car is in the garage or not. I’d like it to return Yes or No ( instead of On or Off ) to Home Assistant

This is purely cosmetic so not likely worth a devs time. But it’s the month of WTH…so I thought WTH

If anyone can think of a way to do it with other code fudgery, I’m open to it

4

I would expand this, WTH I cannot have a custom configurable device_class.

device_class:
   binary:
      lunch:
         "true": 
             name: ready
             icon: mdi:lunch
        "false":
             name: not_ready
             icon: mdi:not-lunch
5

binary_sensors are purely on or off. The only thing that changes is how their displayed, based upon the device class.

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6

That’s the ask, make the representation configurable. Think of a blueprint for sensors.

7

Template sensor helper, state template:

{{ 'Yes' if is_state('binary_sensor.your_source','on') else 'No' }}

Binary sensors are defined as on or off — you can use device classes to give a variety of different front-end representations of that, but please don’t make the back end more complicated.

Perhaps put a feature request in for a “yes / no” device class to be added.

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8

You can do that, but it sucks:

  • You need a separate icon handling
  • It’s not a binary sensor anymore, triggering on it will require some jumps
  • Cannot be multi-lingual
  • You need separate color handling on the dashboard (will not be yellow automatically when on)
9

This has been requested before. I’m guessing it is just too big an ask. I’ve given up asking.

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