Detailed instructions for Home Assistant

[Nibb31]

Hi, Could you give some more precise instructions on how to use this with Home Assistant (and AppDaemon). Do all the scripts need to be in AppDaemon or only the main meshtastic-mqtt.py? What to put in apps.yaml? What exactly does "on appdaemon remove the argument here" mean ? How do you get a device/entities that you can interact with in Home Assistant ?

[joshpirihi]

All Ive been using app daemon for is a place to leave this script running. It doesn't actually interact with home assistant at all. I'd love to make a proper integration for home assistant sometime, that would probably use this script as a major component

Here's what my apps folder looks like. This repo has diverged from the script I've got in there at the moment, I might have a look to see if there's a way to run a script from pip in home assistant somehow.

[gfzmake]

Hi, I put this files in appdaemon but how can runit ?

[joshpirihi]

Edit the meshtastic_mqtt.py script, and import the hassapi stuff and change the class definition:

#uncomment for AppDaemon
import hassapi as hass

#swap for AppDaemon
class MeshtasticMQTT(hass.Hass=None):
#class MeshtasticMQTT():

Then down the bottom comment out this bit:

#in appdaemon comment this block out
#if __name__ == '__main__':
#    main()

Finally, restart AppDaemon and watch the Log tab as it starts up, you should eventually see a message saying meshtastic-mqtt has started:

2022-02-18 19:52:38.561113 INFO AppDaemon: Initializing app meshtastic-mqtt using class MeshtasticMQTT from module meshtastic-mqtt

[gfzmake]

Looks promising I have to do something else ?

[joshpirihi]

EDIT THIS IS WRONG... SE BELOW

Oops yea you need to add this to apps.yaml:

meshtastic-mqtt:
  module: "meshtastic-mqtt"
  class: MeshtasticMQTT

[gfzmake]

[joshpirihi]

I got that wrong. Sorry the version mismatch has me behind a little. Your apps.yaml should be

meshtastic_mqtt:
  module: "meshtastic_mqtt"
  class: MeshtasticMQTT

[gfzmake]

[joshpirihi]

Getting there! Remove the =None so the class definition looks like class MeshtasticMQTT(hass.Hass):

[gfzmake]

Aright...

[joshpirihi]

Ok I really need to do some work here I guess. Below is my entire script that is running on my AppDaemon. It's a bit different to what is in this repo but it is working on my one:

# python3.6

from portnums_pb2 import ENVIRONMENTAL_MEASUREMENT_APP, POSITION_APP
import random
import json

import mesh_pb2 as mesh_pb2
import mqtt_pb2 as mqtt_pb2
import environmental_measurement_pb2

from paho.mqtt import client as mqtt_client

import requests

import hassapi as hass

class MeshtasticMQTT(hass.Hass):

    broker = '10.147.253.250'
    port = 1883
    topic = "msh/1/c/#"
    # generate client ID with pub prefix randomly
    client_id = f'python-mqtt-{random.randint(0, 100)}'
    # username = 'emqx'
    # password = 'public'

    traccarHost = '10.147.253.250'

    def connect_mqtt(self) -> mqtt_client:
        def on_connect(client, userdata, flags, rc):
            if rc == 0:
                print("Connected to MQTT Broker!")
            else:
                print("Failed to connect, return code %d\n", rc)

        client = mqtt_client.Client(self.client_id)
        client.username_pw_set("user", "pass")
        client.on_connect = on_connect
        client.connect(self.broker, self.port)
        return client

    def subscribe(self, client: mqtt_client):
        def on_message(client, userdata, msg):
            #print(f"Received `{msg.payload.decode()}` from `{msg.topic}` topic")
            se = mqtt_pb2.ServiceEnvelope()
            se.ParseFromString(msg.payload)

            print(se)
            mp = se.packet
            if mp.decoded.portnum == POSITION_APP:
                pos = mesh_pb2.Position()
                pos.ParseFromString(mp.decoded.payload)
                print(getattr(mp, "from"))
                print(pos)
                owntracks_payload = {
                    "_type": "location",
                    "lat": pos.latitude_i * 1e-7,
                    "lon": pos.longitude_i * 1e-7,
                    "tst": pos.time,
                    "batt": pos.battery_level,
                    "alt": pos.altitude
                }
                if owntracks_payload["lat"] != 0 and owntracks_payload["lon"] != 0:
                    #client.publish("owntracks/"+str(getattr(mp, "from"))+"/meshtastic_node", json.dumps(owntracks_payload))
                    if len(self.traccarHost) > 0:
                        traccarURL = "http://"+self.traccarHost+":5055?id="+str(getattr(mp, "from"))+"&lat="+str(pos.latitude_i * 1e-7)+"&lon="+str(pos.longitude_i * 1e-7)+"&altitude="+str(pos.altitude)+"&battery_level="+str(pos.battery_level)+"&hdop="+str(pos.PDOP)+"&accuracy="+str(pos.PDOP*0.03)
                        print(traccarURL)
                        submitted = requests.get(traccarURL)
                        print(submitted)
                #lets also publish the battery directly
                if pos.battery_level > 0:
                    client.publish("/mesh/"+str(getattr(mp, "from"))+"/battery", pos.battery_level)
            elif mp.decoded.portnum == ENVIRONMENTAL_MEASUREMENT_APP:
                env = environmental_measurement_pb2.EnvironmentalMeasurement()
                env.ParseFromString(mp.decoded.payload)
                print(env)
                client.publish("/mesh/"+str(getattr(mp, "from"))+"/temperature", env.temperature)
                client.publish("/mesh/"+str(getattr(mp, "from"))+"/relative_humidity", env.relative_humidity)

        client.subscribe(self.topic)
        client.on_message = on_message

    def run(self):
        client = self.connect_mqtt()
        self.subscribe(client)
        client.loop_forever()

    def initialize(self):
        self.run()

#if __name__ == '__main__':
#    mm = MeshtasticMQTT()
#    mm.run()

[gfzmake]

I had to uncomment mqtt password

[joshpirihi]

Oh yea the protobufs have changed too.. I will create a seperate repo for this and push up my current working files. Its diverged too much. Stand by...

[joshpirihi]

https://github.com/joshpirihi/meshtastic-mqtt-appdaemon

[gfzmake]

Great work!

[gfzmake]

Still need some tweaks

[joshpirihi]

That's working! You can ignore all the warnings there, it's just ignoring the protobufs as it should. If you connect a node to your mqtt you should now get some data out of it

[gfzmake]

Where should it appear ?

[joshpirihi]

it should create a meshtastic/ topic tree. What do you see on the AppDaemon Log tab now? Is the broker and username and password set properly?

I've just tweaked the main script on the repo to make the mqtt credentials a bit easier to set, they were hard coded.

[gfzmake]

In config of username and password username said "usename"

[joshpirihi]

Should be fixed now

[gfzmake]

[joshpirihi]

Does your mqtt broker require credentials? If it doesn't, you'll need to comment out the line client.username_pw_set()

[gfzmake]

Yes my mqtt require credentials.

[gfzmake]

Yeah, same error... I have these packages installed

[joshpirihi]

What does your whole script look like? Are you defining username and password? It looks like it may be an issue with them

[gfzmake]

This script?

[joshpirihi]

Ohh sorry man my python is not great. Change the username_pw_set to

        client.username_pw_set(self.username, self.password)

[gfzmake]

Success! connected to the mqtt but still not decode the message.

[joshpirihi]

As packets are published by your gateway node, meshtastic-mqtt will translate them. That Log page should start showing some traffic if the mqtt is connected up properly

[gfzmake]

[gfzmake]

This ?

[joshpirihi]

Yep that's it! That is showing that the packets are still encrypted. Most likely you'll need to upgrade the firmware on your gateway node to at least 1.2.54. Support for on-device decryption was added part way through 1.2.53

[gfzmake]

I have two nodes, one encrypted and the other free.

[joshpirihi]

Which one is connected to mqtt? And what firmware version is it running? Setting a blank encryption key isn't enough for this particular task

[gfzmake]

Is 1.2.55

[joshpirihi]

What is the output of meshtastic --info for that node?

[gfzmake]

Now the node is at the top of the roof... I had configured it with this example.

[joshpirihi]

Where is that documentation from? It's the wrong way around... that needs to be false. You can configure it with the cli via the network mestastic --host 192.168.1.2 --set mqtt_encryption_enabled false

[gfzmake]

Really great! I need to reboot the node after change settings ?

[joshpirihi]

I don't think so, but it won't hurt to reboot

[gfzmake]

i'm restarting Home Assistant

[gfzmake]

Looks like it's working! But only when I reboot or stop AppDaemon.

In mqtt the topic "meshtastic" still does not appear.

[joshpirihi]

try subscribing to /mesh/# instead

[joshpirihi]

There isn't currently support for text messages. Ill add it now

[gfzmake]

Ok great!

[joshpirihi]

I've updated the script here. That should work a bit better

[gfzmake]

Stil decode messages does not appear in mqtt

[joshpirihi]

Just tweaked the script again, could you give it another go?

[gfzmake]

Sure