ESPNow communication Component

This component allows ESPHome to communicate with esp32 devices in a simple and unrestricted way. It enables the option to interact with other esp32 devices over the Espressif’s ESP-NOW protocol, see documentation

Note

Broadcasting data is not recommended, this will also reach devices not controlled by you that use the esp-now protocol. The best solution is to minimize the broadcasting as much as possible and use it only for identification purposes.

# Example configuration entry
espnow:

Configuration variables

channel (Optional, int): The Wi-Fi channel that the esp-now communication will use to send/receive data packets. Cannot be set when the WiFi Component is used, as it will use the same channel as the wifi network.
auto_add_peer (Optional, boolean): This will allow the esp-now component to automatically add any new incoming device as a peer. See Peers below. Defaults to false.
enable_on_boot (Optional, boolean): Enable the esp-now component on boot. Defaults to true.
peers (Optional, list): A peer is the name for devices that use esp-now. The list will have all MAC addresses from the devices where this device may communicate with. See Peers below.

Automations:

on_receive (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when data is received. See on_receive.
on_unknown_peer (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when data is received from an unknown peer. See on_unknown_peer.
on_broadcast (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when a broadcast packet is received. See on_broadcast.

Automations

There will be 3 variables available to automations. Their memory will be cleaned up after the automation is done and will not be available if there are any delay actions or others that do work “asynchronously” in the automation.

info: espnow::ESPNowRecvInfo with information about the received packet.
data: A const uint8_t * - pointer to the data.
size: The size of the data in bytes.

espnow:
  on_...:
    - logger.log:
        format: "Sent to %s from %s: %s RSSI: %ddBm"
        args:
          - format_mac_address_pretty(info.des_addr).c_str()
          - format_mac_address_pretty(info.src_addr).c_str()
          - format_hex_pretty(data, size).c_str()
          - info.rx_ctrl->rssi

`on_receive`

This automation will be triggered when data is received from a registered peer.

Configuration variables

address (Optional, MAC Address): Filter this trigger to packets where the source address matches. If not set, it will match any device.

`on_unknown_peer`

This automation will be triggered when data is received from a peer that is not in the list of known peers. This trigger gives you one possibility to decide if the unknown peer can be added or not.

`on_broadcast`

This automation will be triggered when a broadcast packet is received.

Configuration variables

address (Optional, MAC Address): Filter this trigger to packets where the source address matches. If not set, it will match any device.

`espnow.send` Action

This is an Action for sending a data packet over the espnow protocol.

on_...:
  - espnow.send:
      address: 11:22:33:44:55:66
      data: "The big angry wolf awakens"
  - espnow.send:
      address: 11:22:33:44:55:66
      data: !lambda "return {0x00, 0x00, 0x34, 0x5d};"
  - espnow.send:
      address: !lambda "return {0x11, 0x22, 0x33, 0x44, 0x55, 0x66};"
      data: [0x00, 0x00, 0x34, 0x5d]
  - espnow.send:
      address: !lambda "return {0x11, 0x22, 0x33, 0x44, 0x55, 0x66};"
      data: !lambda "return {0x00, 0x00, 0x34, 0x5d};"

Configuration variables

address (Required, templatable, MAC Address): The MAC address of the receiving device to send to.
data (Required, templatable, string or list of bytes): The data to be sent.
wait_for_sent (Optional, boolean): The automation will wait for the data to be sent and for the on_sent or on_error actions to be finished before continuing with the next action. Defaults to true.
continue_on_error (Optional, boolean): If set to false, the next action will not be triggered if the data could not be sent. Defaults to true.

Automations:

on_sent (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when the data is sent successfully.
on_error (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when the data could not be sent.

`espnow.broadcast` Action

This is an Action for sending a data packet over the espnow protocol to any device that is listening.

on_...:
  - espnow.broadcast:
      data: "The big angry wolf awakens"
  - espnow.broadcast:
      data: !lambda "return {0x00, 0x00, 0x34, 0x5d};"
  - espnow.broadcast:
      data: [0x00, 0x00, 0x34, 0x5d]

Configuration variables

data (Required, templatable, string or list of bytes): The data to be sent.

`espnow.peer.add` Action

This is an Action to add a new peer to the internal allowed peers list.

on_...:
  - espnow.peer.add:
      address: 11:22:33:44:55:66
  - espnow.peer.add:
      address: !lambda "return {0x11, 0x22, 0x33, 0x44, 0x55, 0x66};"

Configuration variables

address (Required, MAC Address): The Peer address that needs to be added to the list of allowed peers.

`espnow.peer.delete` Action

This is an Action to remove a known peer from the internal allowed peers list.

on_...:
  - espnow.peer.delete:
      address: 11:22:33:44:55:66
  - espnow.peer.delete:
      address: !lambda "return {0x11, 0x22, 0x33, 0x44, 0x55, 0x66};"

Configuration variables

address (Required, MAC Address): The Peer address that needs to be removed from the list of allowed peers.

`espnow.set_channel` Action

This is an Action to change the channel that espnow is sending and receiving on.

on_...:
  - espnow.set_channel:
      channel: 1
  - espnow.set_channel: 1

Configuration variables

channel (Required, int): This can be a value between 0 and 15. The maximum channel number depends on the country or region where you are using the device (for example, channels 1-11 are allowed in the US and most of Europe, 1-13 in many other countries, and 1-14 in Japan). For details, see the Wi-Fi channel regulations by country or consult the Espressif ESP-NOW documentation. 0 means that espnow will set the channel number itself (most of the time it would be 1 ).

Peers

A peer is a device that this device is allowed to send to. Broadcast and unencrypted unicast data can be received from any device without explicitly adding it as a peer.

If auto_add_peer is set to false and you have not added any peers, then only broadcasts can be sent and there will be an error when trying to send data to a peer.

Setting auto_add_peer to true will allow the component to automatically add any incoming device as a peer, and will automatically add any peer that data is sent to.