Integration of OpenWebRX+ under Homeassistant (hass). Adding sensors (mqtt, rest and template sensors) into the homeassistant configuration in order to display the OpenWebRX+ status on an entity card, and to trigger automations, when specific call signs, or stations in specific locator grids or on specific frequency bands were decoded.
Check that in your home assistant configuration file configuration.yaml the following
lines are included, if not add them:
rest: !include rest.yaml
mqtt: !include mqtt.yaml
template: !include templates.yaml
Custom defined jinja macros are stored in the hass data sub-directory custom_templates.
To check the online status of your OpenWebRX, you also need to add the Ping (ICMP) Integration.
- Go to Settings > Devices & Services.
- In the bottom right corner, select the Add Integration button.
- From the list, select Ping (ICMP).
Follow the instructions on screen to complete the setup. Add the hostname or IP address
of your OpenWebRX. Once defined, go to Entities and change the ping sensor entity id
to binary_sensor.openwebrx. It will then appear as a binary sensor with status on,
when connected, and off, when offline.
In the file rest.yaml and templates.yaml modify binary_sensor.openwebrx under availability:
according to the name of the binary sensor for your webrx, in case you have a different entity id.
Information from the OpenWebRX is passed to Homeassistant using a MQTT broker. Therefore you need a running MQTT broker (e.g. Mosquitto) and you need to install the Homeassistant MQTT integration. There is easy to find information about the installation available in the web. It is also necessary to configure OpenWebRXs MQTT settings. Please to note down the MQTT broker address, port, username and password (if any).
Go to OpenWebRX settings. Under Settings/Spotting and Reporting scroll down to MQTT settings. Tick Enable publishing reports to MQTT and fill in Broker address, Username and Password. We leave Client ID and MQTT topic as default.
Add the rest.yaml, mqtt.yaml and template.yaml files to your hass configuration directory,
or modify and append your existing rest, mqtt and template yaml files with the corresponding
sensor definitions from the yaml files in the repository. You then need to restart Home Assistant.
Go to Developer tools > YAML > CHECK CONFIGURATION. Once the result is ok,
click RESTART.
Any further change to the Template, Rest or MQTT files only need a reload of the yaml configuration. Go to Developer tools > YAML and look for REST ENTITIES AND NOTIFY SERVICES, MANUALLY CONFIGURED MQTT ENTITIES and TEMPLATE ENTITIES. Click on them to reload. You should then be able to find the new sensors under Developer tools > states. The following entities should be available:
sensor.openwebrx_ft8Frequency of the latest decoded FT8 signal in kHz.sensor.openwebrx_rxLatest profile switched to.
Both sensors contain more information in their attributes.
sensor.openwebrx_usersNumber of connected users.sensor.openwebrx_versionVersion of the OpenWebRX+ software.
As for the mqtt sensors, more information is provided in the attributes. The sensor
sensor.openwebrx_users is useful for statistics, sensor.openwebrx_version provides
the list of connected SDRs and their profiles.
sensor.webrx_ft8_min_agoTime since last FT-8 decode in minutes, derived fromsensor.openwebrx_ft8sensor.sdr_connectedList of connected SDRs, derived fromsensor.openwebrx_version
binary_sensor.openwebrxOpenWebRX Online status
The name of the Ping sensor depends on the name you gave in the ping integration, see above.
The file card.yaml contains - as a first example - an entities card, how the OpenWebRX status
could be displayed. With ADD CARD select MANUAL and copy the yaml code to the card configuration.
The second example is a markdown card. It will show the statistics of decoded FT-8, FT-4 and WSPR signals.
Add the code after selecting the YAML editor of the markdown card.
Once, the sensors are added and working, you can easily define alarms, when a certain call sign is decoded or when activities show up on a selected band etc.
Use the combination of frequency sensor.openwebrx_ft8 and elapsed time sensor.webrx_ft8_min_ago to
trigger an alarm for band activities. Use the locator attribute of sensor.openwebrx_ft8 to trigger
an alarm, when a certain locator field (or list of locator fields) was detected.
The file macros.jinja in the subdirectory custom_templates contains a macro to spell
out a call sign (or any word) using the phonetic alphabet. You need to copy this file into
your hass data directory under the same subdirectory custom_templates.
There are two blueprint automations and one blueprint script available. You can add them via the
configuration file configuration.yaml, or by importing them, using the Home assistant UI.
In both blueprints automations you can switch on/off spoken notifications.
In order to get spoken notifications, you need to import the blueprint spoken-notification.yaml first.
Both automation blueprints need an input_text helper, to store the last announced call sign, frequency and
timestamp. Create a Text helper under Settings -> Devices and Services -> Helpers.
Give it the name last_call. You can then select it when running the blueprints.
The blueprint spoken-notification.yaml in /blueprints/script directory is required, when you
want to receive spoken notifications in addition to the notifications. It requires to select a
TTS entity, your media player, and a Voice announcement switch, an input_boolean helper,
to switch on-off all announcements.
Create a Toggle helper under Settings -> Devices and Services -> Helpers, using for example
the name Say-on-off. You can later select it in the blueprint.
If you want an alert sound before the actual voice announcement, you can switch it on and select the
sound file from your media directory. An example alarm sound is given in the directory media.
The blueprint webrx-callsign-alert.yaml in /blueprints/automations makes a notification and
announcement for specific call signs in a call sign list.
Define a Text helper under Settings -> Devices and Services -> Helpers.
Give it the name call-sign-list. You can use the entities card to display the list.
Input the call signs, you want to receive a notification from, in the text field, separated by comma.
You will receive notifications, once a call sign from this list was decoded.
The blueprint webrx-template-alert.yaml in /blueprints/automations allows a notification and
an optional spoken anouncement of FT-8 decoded call signs based on a trigger template.
When the template evaluates to true, the notification/announcement is triggered.
In the template you can use the variable ft8 with the following attributes:
-
state_attr( ft8, 'callsign')call sign -
state_attr( ft8, 'locator')maidenhead locator, e.g. OJ11 -
state_attr( ft8, 'db')SNR of the decoded signal in dB.
The variable ft8 itself states(ft8) provides the frequency in kHz.
An additional input text helper stores the recent call sign already announced to avoid repeating announcements. Announcements of the same call sign on the same frequency are by default every 30 minutes; this can be changed in the blueprint.
Note: If you select Spoken Notification, you need to install another blueprint script
spoken-notification and the file macros.jinja first (see above).
{% set prefix =
(state_attr(ft8,'callsign')|list)[0]
+(state_attr(ft8,'callsign')|list)[1] %}
{# Philippines #} {% set du =
['DU','DV','DW','DX','DY','DZ',
'4D','4E','4F','4G','4H','4I'] %}
{{ prefix in du }}
When you store the blueprint with this template, you can rename it to, e.g. webrx-du-alert, and use
other names for different templates. More template examples are shown under
blueprint automation directory in the file README.
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