ESPresense Settings

The ESP32 will launch a captive browser (under it’s own SSID) on first normal boot after flashing that will allow you to configure:

  • WiFi settings (only when accessed initially)
  • Room name - This is the name that will identify this sensor in Home Assistant, as well as the state of mqtt_room sensor. Use a upper/lower word and we’ll slugify it for the places that need that

MQTT

  • Server / Port - non encrypted mqtt server (SSL is NOT supported)
  • Username / Password - optional, passwords are kinda pointless when you’re using them plaintext
  • Send to:
    • Discovery topic - enables home assistant mqtt topic (/homeassistant))
    • Telemetry topic - enables stats about availability also used by counting
    • Rooms topic - traditional mqtt_room topic
    • Devices topic - instead of all mashed together topic, this adds a device to the path (much easier to understand in mqtt explorer)

Updating

  • Automatically update - If enabled we’ll ask github for the latest version and if it’s not the same version as current update to it
  • Include pre-released - Modifies the above check to include pre-releases
  • Arduino OTA Update - If enabled you can remotely flash this device using the standard (espota/ardunio) protocol. Keep disabled for less memory usage, and security.

Scanning

  • Request scan results (this makes the ESP actively ask every advertisement for an additional SCAN RESULT). Experimental you should leave off unless you really want all the extra traffic
  • Known BLE mac addresses - If you have a device that uses a random ble mac BUT it doesn’t actually change the mac periodically you can just put it here and we’ll use the id known:{mac}
  • Query - we use the best id we can figure out based on passively listening to device advertisements, but sometimes you want an even better id. Query enables the ESP to connect to the device and ask it questions. Currently we ask for the room asssistant id, model, and name. If we get useful answers back we will upgrade the id to the most selective one.

Counting

This is a beta feature, it is for the usecase where a device fingerprint doesn’t come up with a unique device but you can gleen useful info from the number of unique macs that are currently broadcasting within a certain distance of the base station. This is most useful for exp:20 (covid exposure apps), apple: (apple devices), or msft:cdp (microsoft devices). Once configured auto discovery will add a Count sensor to your ESPresense device.

  • Include device ids - ids to count
  • Start counting/stop counting (meters) - instead of a HARD line we support allowing a device to “enter” once it gets below a certain distance and only leave when going above a different larger distance. If you set them to the same value you’ll get the HARD line
  • Include device with age less than - Since we’re just getting stateless advertisements we also need the device to “LEAVE” if not seen within a certain amount of time

Filtering

  • Include only sending these ids to mqtt - Just like it says, if set ONLY ids that match this come to mqtt
  • Exclude sending these ids to mqtt - If set will filter out just these ids
  • Maximum distance to report - If the distance is over 16 meters, it’s probably crap and not worth even including in a trilaterization attempt, so don’t bother sending to mqtt
  • Skip reporting if not seen (in milliseconds) / report early if beacon has moved more than this distance. The basic logic is if i’ve reported this recently check out how long it’s been and how far we’ve moved. If it’s been > than the distance here it will report. If its over the skip reporting ms then we’ll send the report with whatever the current distance is.

Calibration

  • Rssi expected from a 0dBm transmitter at 1 meter - This is an average value for your particular base station. In order to figure it out you need a beacon transmitting at exactly 0dBm and your ESP exactly 1 meter away. This value is the base value we use to calculate rss@1m for every beacon that doesn’t broadcast a calibrated rssi@1m. (Basically Alt/iBeacons and Eddystones all broadcast a calibrated rssi, everything else uses this w/ a correction factor)

  • Factor used to account for absorption, reflection, or diffraction - An average value that accounts for the amount of “stuff” in between rooms in your house. Use a higher number for dense materials, lower for assuming no walls.

  • Forget beacon if not seen for (in milliseconds) - We keep a big linked list of all the macs broadcasting to do all the magic. This is the value we use to delete if not seen for this amount of time. If too low we’ll delete and re-add too often. Not sure why this is even configurable.

Misc

  • Status LED - Blink the LED to the BLE advertisements. A constant slow blink means no mqtt connection.
  • PIR motion pin (0 for disable) - GPIO pin to detect pir motion on
  • Radar motion pin (0 for disable): - GPIO pin to detect radar motion on