A16 - MQTT Issues

[PierrePetite]

Hey, 

first of all: Thanks for this great product! I am now trying to connect it via MQTT to Home Assistant. (I had several issues by using ESPHome, so I wanna stick with MQTT for now). 

What I did: 

• MQTT Setup within KCS
  
• Setup Mosquito and MQTT within Home-Assistant (Already existing)
  
• Confirmed that the Packages are received by listening to #
  

I have used the following YAML within Home Assistants configuration.yaml, customized based on the received packages while listening to #:

Code:

mqtt:
  switch:
   - name: 'kcs868-a16-output-1'
     unique_id: kcs868-a16-output-1
     state_topic: 'KC868_A16/2CBCBB646ACC/STATE'
     command_topic: 'KC868_A16/2CBCBB646ACC/SET'
     payload_on:  '{"output1":{"value":true}}'
     payload_off:  '{"output1":{"value":false}}'
     value_template: '{{ value_json.output1.value }}'
     state_on: true
     state_off: false

As a result, I can - after restarting Home Assistant control the Output 1. 
BUT: It does not show the current status of Output one! (See Screenshot). Status is unknown. 

Any Idea what went wrong? What could I check? 

[admin]

take a photo of your KCS mqtt setting webpage.

[PierrePetite]

take a photo of your KCS mqtt setting webpage.

Here we go. Not showing the mqtt broker login - which is set and working. As said: Sending requests are working just reading the state seems not to work. 

Version 2.2.5 btw - will update to 2.2.10 today. 

[admin]

maybe it's your mqtt broker have issue.

[David8827]

Edit: my bad it is not fully working ...
It was just a blind result, I post to quickly

I will be back :-)

[admin]

thanks share your result.

[David8827]

So, i am back

note on my setup:
firmware v2.2.10
hardware KC868-A32 V1.2

First 
There is a (minor) mistake in the MQTT payload output by the board, at the end there is an extra comma.
If you look the payload is like:

{"input1":{"value":false},"input2":{"value":false},..."adc4":{"value":0},}

to be 100% json compliant it should end like:

{"input1":{"value":false},"input2":{"value":false},..."adc4":{"value":0}}

Second
below the mqtt configuration I manage to make work with the help of HA forum member
this configuration take in account the last extra comma and is compatible with or without this comma

Code:

mqtt:
  switch:
   - name: 'KC32_578_o1'
     unique_id: KC32_578_o1
     state_topic:   'KC868_A32/123456/STATE'
     command_topic: 'KC868_A32/123456/SET'
     payload_on:  '{"output1":{"value":true}}'
     payload_off: '{"output1":{"value":false}}'
     value_template: >
      {% set value_json = value | replace(",}", "}") | from_json %}
      {{ value_json.output1.value }}
     state_on:  true
     state_off: false

Third
I had during my attempts and tries, sometime switch quickly on/off the relay, and sometime the board did not sens it last status.
I tel this just to share my experience,this is not a real problem, not need to try to fix I think because:
switching so fast is not real life
It can be easily bypassed by sending

Code:

get_datas":{"value":true}}

so if anyone get this trouble he can send this periodicaly (eg each minute) or add it in the on/off payload like

Code:

payload_on:  '{"output1":{"value":true},"get_datas":{"value":true}}'
payload_off: '{"output1":{"value":false},"get_datas":{"value":true}}'

Finaly
Thank you for your boards, thank you for KCS firmware.
I think it is a lot of work
but the information is a little messy, for example we have a lot of topic for a lot of firmware version, the uper top topic is not the last firmware version, all boards a not mentioned each time ...
You have a great MQTT pdf documentation but it is not easy to find (and to know it exist)

Have a good day and long life to you and your products ;-)

[admin]

thanks for your suggestion. we will check with KCS v2.2.10
how to do you think easy to find out the newest firmware and documents? because there are much board models.