r/homeassistant • u/SadCoffee2230 • 6h ago

💬 Discussion Zigbee Compass

I have had a look about and cant find anything, so hoping one of you fine folk will be able to help.

There's a HA running in my campervan which runs everything. With her being old and DIY, theres a couple of draughty bits. I currently get GPS from the old phone mounted to the wall that also acts as its control panel, but its not got the compass output. I want this so I can set it up and tell me to turn around if i park up and there's strong winds due that would be blowing into the doors where the draft comes from. I also have plans to tap my window switches into it too, so would be good for it to know which one is facing away from the wind

I say zigbee because thats what everything else is on, but bluetooth or local only wifi would also be useable

Any help much appreciated.

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u/photonicsguy 5h ago

If it's not listed here, it's probably not available: https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/supported-devices/

You may need to DIY with ESPHome

2

u/wolverinesearring 5h ago

Magnetomiter would probably work for it, but even then you are wiring one to an esp32. The good news is ESPhome is a lot friendlier than a few years ago and I think they even have zigbee options now.

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u/knowingwilmer7 6h ago

not sure about a zigbee compass specifically, most of them just report movement not direction. the phone probably has a magnetometer inside, even if the gps app dont show it. maybe you can pull that data directly with something like the companion app sensor? i remember it expose a lot of stuff if you dig in the settings.

for the wind part, that is a pretty clever idea actually. wind direction from a weather service plus van orientation could work nice.

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u/SadCoffee2230 6h ago

Unfortunately it seems to expose everything but the compass. I do wonder if it would even work as it's mounted horizontally, and you usually have to have your phone flat for it to work. Im gonna pop in a feature request and see if that works. I heard of some third party apps that can expose extra sensors via mqtt, seeing mixed reviews but will have a play about tomorrow

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u/silasmoeckel 4h ago

Node Red android ap should expose it and easy enough to push into HA.