MQTT Binary Sensor
The mqtt
binary sensor platform uses an MQTT message payload to set the binary sensor to one of two states: on
or off
.
The binary sensor state will be updated only after a new message is published on state_topic
matching payload_on
or payload_off
. If these messages are published with the retain
flag set, the binary sensor will receive an instant state update after subscription and Home Assistant will display the correct state on startup. Otherwise, the initial state displayed in Home Assistant will be unknown
.
The mqtt
binary sensor platform optionally supports an availability_topic
to receive online and offline messages (birth and LWT messages) from the MQTT device. During normal operation, if the MQTT cover device goes offline (i.e. publishes payload_not_available
to availability_topic
), Home Assistant will display the binary sensor as unavailable
. If these messages are published with the retain
flag set, the binary sensor will receive an instant update after subscription and Home Assistant will display the correct availability state of the binary sensor when Home Assistant starts up. If the retain
flag is not set, Home Assistant will display the binary sensor as unavailable
when Home Assistant starts up. If no availability_topic
is defined, Home Assistant will consider the MQTT device to be available.
To use an MQTT binary sensor in your installation, add the following to your configuration.yaml
file:
# Example configuration.yaml entry
binary_sensor:
- platform: mqtt
state_topic: "home-assistant/window/contact"
Configuration variables:
- name (Optional): The name of the binary sensor. Default is
MQTT Binary Sensor
. - state_topic (Required): The MQTT topic subscribed to receive sensor values.
- payload_on (Optional): The payload that represents the on state. Default is
ON
. - payload_off (Optional): The payload that represents the off state. Default is
OFF
. - availability_topic (Optional): The MQTT topic subscribed to receive birth and LWT messages from the MQTT device. If
availability_topic
is not defined, the binary sensor availability state will always beavailable
. Ifavailability_topic
is defined, the binary sensor availability state will beunavailable
by default. - payload_available (Optional): The payload that represents the online state. Default is
online
. - payload_not_available (Optional): The payload that represents the offline state. Default is
offline
. - qos (Optional): The maximum QoS level to be used when receiving messages. Default is
0
. - device_class (Optional): The type/class of the sensor to set the icon in the frontend.
- value_template (Optional): Defines a template to extract a value from the payload.
To test, you can use the command line tool mosquitto_pub
shipped with mosquitto
or the mosquitto-clients
package to send MQTT messages. To set the state of the binary sensor manually:
$ mosquitto_pub -h 127.0.0.1 -t home-assistant/window/contact -m "OFF"
The example below shows a full configuration for a binary sensor:
# Example configuration.yaml entry
binary_sensor:
- platform: mqtt
name: "Window Contact Sensor"
state_topic: "home-assistant/window/contact"
payload_on: "ON"
payload_off: "OFF"
availability_topic: "home-assistant/window/availability"
payload_available: "online"
payload_not_available: "offline"
qos: 0
device_class: opening
value_template: '{{ value.x }}'