The OP question was how to track Tile Locators with HE.
My project is to create very reliable Arrival Detection but it actually can
precisely locate Active Beacons around the house.
This project requires additional hw/sw components:
- Home Assistant (I am using my spare RPI 3b);
- ESP32 Development Board; https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08246MCL5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
- and of course Active Beacons; https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085XN9B7N/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
For each involved hw and sw components please follow the correspondent
docs and instructions.
The steps are:
-
Install and configure Home Assistant follow the instruction from the HA web site:
Getting Started - Home Assistant-
Add MQTT Mosquitto Broker Integration and configure it.
MQTT Broker is required for communication with the ESPresence device. -
Add Virtual Devices components:
GitHub - twrecked/hass-virtual: Virtual Components for Home Assistant
Virtual Presence Sensor on the HA is a component for interfacing with HE.Configure Virtual Presence Sensors (I have only one) but adding next
lines to the configuration.yaml file (sensor name could be whatever you like):
-
binary_sensor:
- platform: virtual
name: 'Welcome Home Sensor'
initial_value: 'off'
class: presence
initial_availability: true
Repeat this code for every Virtual Sensor if you need more than one.
Add entries for all you Beacon Devices in the same configuration.yaml file:
sensor:
- platform: mqtt_room
name: 'Beacon 1'
device_id: 'iBeacon:Your actual Beacon ID1'
state_topic: 'espresense/rooms'
timeout: 20
away_timeout: 180
- platform: mqtt_room
name: 'Beacon 2'
device_id: 'iBeacon:Your actual Beacon ID1'
state_topic: 'espresense/rooms'
timeout: 20
away_timeout: 180
-
Program and configure the ESP32 Development Board with the
ESPresence firmware: https://espresense.com/ -
Install Home Assistant Device Bridge on the HE using HPM.
This driver will bring in all Virtual Presence Sensors from HA to HE.
That is about it.
Finally add some automation to the HA for triggering Virtual Presence Sensor(s)
by using GUI or editing automations.yaml file:
- id: '1652741258583'
alias: Welcome Home BT Trackers
description: ''
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id:
- sensor.beacon_1
- sensor.beacon_2
from: not_home
to: corridor
condition: []
action:
- service: virtual.turn_on
data:
entity_id: binary_sensor.virtual_welcome_home_sensor
- delay:
hours: 0
minutes: 0
seconds: 5
milliseconds: 0
- service: virtual.turn_off
data:
entity_id: binary_sensor.virtual_welcome_home_sensor
mode: single
In my case "Welcome Home Sensor" will be set to Home state for 5 sec
when any of the Beacon Devices will be detected as present.
HE will see the current status of the "Welcome Home Sensor".
Add whatever automation you need to the HE.
In my case the "Welcome Home Sensor" is a part of Auto Unlock logic.
Thank to this project finally Auto Unlock function became very reliable.