Monitoring WiFi-Enabled Devices With 'Ping' in Home Assistant

  • Sat, Jun 3, 2023
  • 2-minute read

In the world of home automation, effectively managing your WiFi-capable devices is crucial. In this post, we’ll demonstrate how you can monitor the status of such devices using the ‘ping’ function in Home Assistant. This process can complement an IR blaster setup and reinforce an “all-off” script.

Obviously, this method only works with devices that have WiFi connectivity, such as a smart TV.

Steps

Step 1: Edit your configuration file with nano hassio-config/configuration.yaml and enter the following:

binary_sensor:
  - platform: ping
    host: <your_device_IP_address>
    name: "<device_name>"
    count: 2
    scan_interval: 5

Replace <your_device_IP_address> with the IP address of your device and <device_name> with the name you want to give to your device.

Step 2: Create a script in Home Assistant as follows:

alias: <alias_name>
sequence:
  - condition: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.<device_name>
    state: "on"
    enabled: true
  - service: script.<device_service_name>
    data: {}
  - if:
      - condition: state
        entity_id: binary_sensor.<device_name>
        state: "on"
    then:
      - service: script.<secondary_service_name>
        data: {}
    enabled: false
mode: single
icon: mdi:television

Replace <alias_name>, <device_name>, <device_service_name>, and <secondary_service_name> as per your requirements.

These steps will ensure that Home Assistant checks whether your device is on before triggering the “all-off” script. This is particularly useful with devices that use the same IR code for turning on and off, mitigating potential issues that might arise in such scenarios.

For additional details, refer to the following resources:

Happy automating!

IoTlinux server homeassistantpingwifimonitoring