Zigbee devices, especially battery-powered ones, can occasionally become unavailable due to various reasons such as battery drain or connection issues. It’s crucial to get notified when a Zigbee device goes offline to ensure your smart home setup runs smoothly. This guide will help you set up alerts in Home Assistant to monitor the availability of your Zigbee devices. I’m using Zigbee Home Automation (ZHA), but the same concept can be applied to Zigbee2MQTT.
Requirements
- Ensure the “rssi” property is enabled for all your Zigbee devices in the Diagnostic section. By default, this property is disabled.
- Add the following YAML code to your
configuration.yaml:
- template:
- binary_sensor:
- name: "Any Zigbee Unavailable"
state: "{{ integration_entities('zha') | select('search','rssi$') | select('is_state', 'unavailable') | list | count > 0 }}"
attributes:
entity_id: >
{% set entities = integration_entities('zha') | select('search','rssi$') | select('is_state', 'unavailable') | list %}
{% set names = entities | map('state_attr', 'friendly_name') | list %}
{{ names }}
unique_id: any_zha_unavailable
Creating the Automation
Next, create the following automation in Home Assistant to receive notifications when any Zigbee device is down for over a minute:
alias: Alert if Zigbee device is down
description: ""
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id:
- binary_sensor.any_zigbee_unavailable
attribute: entity_id
for:
hours: 0
minutes: 1
seconds: 0
condition: []
action:
- service: notify.persistent_notification
metadata: {}
data:
message: >-
{{ state_attr('binary_sensor.any_zigbee_unavailable','entity_id') |
join(', ') | replace(' RSSI','')}}
mode: single
Explanation
This setup will immediately trigger when any Zigbee device becomes unavailable for over a minute. The binary sensor contains a list of all the devices that are down, so if anything changes in that list, the automation will trigger. It will then send a notification to Home Assistant with a list of the devices that are down.
Summary
By following these steps, you can ensure you are promptly alerted whenever a Zigbee device becomes unavailable, allowing you to take necessary actions to fix the issue. This method leverages Home Assistant’s powerful automation capabilities and keeps your smart home setup reliable.
