Personal note

Normally this section wouldn't exist here. However, on Oct. 7th Israel was attacked by Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls the Gaza strip. They invaded dozens of border communities, murdered, raped, burned, tortured and mutilated nearly 1400 Israelis and kidnapped at least another 200. Most of them civilians, including women, children, elderly and people with disabilities. The atrocities they committed are unspeakable, but the scope of affected people is actually much larger than those directly murdered or kidnapped. There are thousands of survivers, victim's families and over 100,000 people who were displaced from their homes due to constant rocket attacks. As an Israeli, I am spending most of my time since the massacre volunteering to help the victims as best I can, so expect my response time here to be longer than usual.

Since I started this project some of you offered to buy me coffee as a token of appreciation, I always refused because I'm doing it for fun, but if you still want to show your support, a donation to the Brothers and Sisters for Israel organization would be a great place to do that. This organization formed about 10 months ago, as a part of a coalition of pro-democracy civil organizations in Israel, protesting against the government's "judicial reform", which was meant to remove most checks and balances from the government and give it unchecked power, as happened in other countries such as Hungary. At this time of crisis the organization has transformed its infrastructure to a full fledged civic support and relief organization and is a worthy recipient of donations.

I hope the ISIS-like Hamas terrorist organization, who is responsible for the killing of countless Israelis and Palestinians, will soon be destroyed, peace will be restored and both parties can be free to build a better future.

DONATION LINK

P.S. If you don't like this note then a) check your morale compass and b) feel free to not use this integration.

Alternative Home Connect Integration for Home Assistant

This project is an alternative integration for Home Connect enabled home appliances manufactured by BSH under the Bosch, Siemens, Constructa and Neff brands.

If you're using this integration please star it on Github

Main features

Home Assistant already has a built-in integration for Home Connect, however, it is quite basic, generates entities that are not always supported by the connected appliances and tends to stop getting status updates after a while. This integration attempts to address those issues and has the following features:

• All the entities are dynamically read from the API and reflect true capabilities of the appliance.
• The integration exposes entities that provide complete control over programs, program options, and global settings. These entities are dynamically read from API and therefore are specifically applicable to the connected appliances.
• Configurable options and settings are exposed for easy selection using "Select", "Switch" or "Number" entities, as appropriate.
• Read only status values, as well as some selectable options are also made available either using "Sensor" or "Binary Sensor" entities for easier use when only wanting to display them.
• Status events that are published by the Home Connect service are exposed as Home Assistant events.
• "Program Started" and "Program Finished" events are exposed as triggers for easier building of automation scripts.
• A "Start Program" Button entity is provided to start the operation of the selected program.
• Program and option selections are also available as a service for easier integration in scripts.
• The state of all entities is updated in real time with a cloud push type integration.
• Clean handling of appliances disconnecting and reconnecting from the cloud.
• Clean handling of new appliances being added or removed from the service.
• All the names support translation, but currently only the English translation is provided.
• Using pure async implementation for reduced load on the platform.

Installation instruction

Create a Home Connect app

Before installing the integration you need to create an "application" in the Home Connect developers website. Note that if you have an existing appliacation, that was created before July 2022 you will most likely have to update the redirect URI to the one specified below. It can take a few hours for the changes to existing applications to apply, so be patiant.

1. Navigate to the "Applications" page on the Home Connect developers website. You'll be prompted to create an account or sign in if you already have one.
   ➠ NOTE: You MUST use ONLY lowercase letters in the email addresses of both your regular user account and developer account or the integration won't work!
2. Click the "Register Application" link.
3. Fill in the application creation form:
   Application ID: A unique ID for the application, can be home-connect-alt, or whatever you like.
   OAuth Flow: Authorization Code Grant Flow
   Home Connect User Account for Testing: Leave blank
   Redirect URI: https://my.home-assistant.io/redirect/oauth
   Add additional redirect URIs: Leave unchecked
   Enable One Time Token Mode: Leave unchecked
4. Click "Save" then copy the Client ID and Client Secret and save them for use in the next step.

Update the configuration.yaml file

At a minimum you need to add the following to your configuration.yaml file:

home_connect_alt:
  client_id: < Your Client ID >
  client_secret: < You Client Secret >

This configuration should be enough for most people. For more avanced options see the Configuration options section below.

Install the integration

1. The esiest way to install the integration is using HACS. Just click the button bellow and follow the instructions:
2. Navigate to https://my.home-assistant.io/ and make sure the Home Assistant Instance is configured correctly to point to your local Home Assistant instance.
3. Power on all your appliances.
4. Turn OFF the wifi on your phone and make sure all the appliances are operational in the Home Connect mobile app.
5. In your Home Assistant instance navigate to Settings -> Devices & Services then clieck the "Add Integration" button. Search for "Home Connect Alt" and install it.
6. A new window will popup where you will be asked to login to to your Home Connect account and allow Home Assistant to access your appliances. After you approve that you will be redirected back to Home Assistant, continue as instructed.
7. Congratulations, you're done!
   Home Connect Alt will now start downloading the data for your appliances and will add the entities for them to Home Assistant.
   Note that the integration dynamically discoveres entities as they are made available by the API, so expect new entities to be added in the first few uses of the appliances.

Configuration options

These options are supported in configuration.yaml:

home_connect_alt:
  client_id: < Your Client ID >
  client_secret: < You Client Secret >
  name_template: $brand $appliance - $name
  language: < Supported langage code >
  sensor_value_translation: <server | local>
  entity_settings: <custom entity settings>
  appliance_settings: <custom appliance settings>
  api_host: <Home Connect API host name (only use for China)>

Parameters:

• client_id (required) - The Client ID of your Home Connect app.

• client_secret (required) - The Client Secret of your Home Connect app.

• name_template (optional - default = "$brand $appliance - $name") -
  Defines the template used for rendering entity names. The following placeholders are supported and will be replaced dynamically when rendering the name:
  $brand - The brand name of the appliance ("Bosch", "Siemens", etc.)
  $appliance - The type of the appliance ("Washing machine", "Dishwasher", etc.)
  $name - The name of the entity

• language (optional - default = "en") -
  Indicates the language to use for entity names. The translation is automatically loaded from the Home Connect service and must be one of its supported languages.

• sensor_value_translation (optional - default = "local") - Indicates how sensor values shhould be translated to friendly names.
  When set to "local" (the default) the integration will use the raw ENUM values documented in the Home Connect documentation for sensors with string values. In that case the integration relies on the Home Assistant translation mechanism and translation files to translate these values into friendly names. The benefit of this approach is that sensor values used by the integration are language independent and match the values documented in the Home Connect API.
  When set to "server" sensor values are translated to friendly names using the Home Connect service. In this mode the internal values of string sensors will be translated and the translated values must be used in scripts referring to those sensors.

  Note: Select box values are always translated localy so they require the translation files to contain all the possible values.

• api_host (optional) - If you are based in China, and only then, set this to https://api.home-connect.cn

• appliance_settings (optional) - Overrides some settings for specific appliances.
  This setting requires specifying the identifier (HAID) of the appliance. The easiest way to find it is to look at the entity ID of the "Connected" sensor of the appliance. This would look something like binary_sensor.bosch_wat286h0gb_68a64f51deb_connected, and the ID in this case is bosch_wat286h0gb_68a64f51deb.

  Currently supported settings:
  name_template - override the global name_template setting
  disabled - set to true to disable loading the specified appliance (default=false)

  For example:

  appliance_settings:
    bosch_wat286h0gb_68a64f51deb:
      name_template: My appliance $name
      disabled: false
  

• entity_settings (optional) - Overrides internal entity settings.
  Currently supported settings to override are:
  unit: The units to use for numeric values
  icon: The Material Design icon to use for the entity in the format "mdi:<icon name>
  class: The Home Assistant class of the entity (must be a class which is already supported for that entity type) For example:

  entity_settings:
    ConsumerProducts.CoffeeMaker.Status.BeverageCounterCoffee:
      unit: cups
      icon: mdi:coffee
  

  Note: This is an advanced setting and should not be used unless you know what you're doing.

After the integration is configured READ THE FAQ then add it from the Home-Assistant UI.

Automation Notes

Integration state

• There is a special sensor called Home Connect Status which shows the status of the integration. It has the following values:
  • INIT - The integration is initializing
  • RUNNING - The integration has started running
  • LOADED - The integration finished loading the initial data from the Home Connect service
  • READY - The integration has successfully subscribed to real time updates from the cloud service and is now fully functional.
  • BLOCKED - The Home Connect service has blocked additional API calls for a period of time due to exceeding the service rate limits It may take up to one minute to go from LOADED to READY

Services

The following services are available for use with automations:
select_program - Selects a program and optionally set its options
start_program - Starts a program and optionally set its options
stop_program - Stops the active program
pause_program - Pauses the active program (if and when supported by the appliance)
resume_program - Resumes a paused program (if and when supported by the appliance)
set_program_option - Sets an option on the active program if one exists or on the selected program otherwise
apply_setting - Applies the sepecified setting on an appliance
run_command - Runs the specified command on an appliance

Events

The integration exposes the events fired by the service as Home Assistant events under the name: "home_connect_alt_event"
The published events values are:

• BSH.Common.Status.OperationState
• All the events with the keyword "Event" in their names

Triggers

The integration exposes two triggers for easy automation:

• program_started
• program_finished

Local vs. Server translation

The default behavior of this integration is to use "local" value translation. That means that all string sensors keep their internal value in a raw, language independant format. Those values are "translated" in the UI to a human friendly text by using local translation files.
This method is different than most other Home Assistant integration but it has three important benefits:

1. It makes automation code language independent. As a developer I strongly believe that code shouldn't relay on the specific human language currently selected by the user.
2. It allows users to look up possible values in the Home Connect developer documentation. So you can know in advance which values to epxect for a given sensor.
3. It allows add translation for languages which are not supported by the Home COnnect API.

In contrast, setting sensor_value_translation: server will override this behavior and use translations provided by the Home Connect API. This is limited to languages supported by the API but it does make sensor have the actual textual values displayed in the UI. So you can use that if you prefer,

FAQ

• I get errors on the browser window that pops-up after installing the integration for the first time This popup window is trying to log you into the Home Connect website to establish a connection with the integration. If you get an error at this stage it means you didn't follow the setup instuctions carefully enough, so make sure that you do. Also make sure that you open https://my.home-assistant.io/ and configure the URL of your Home-Assistant server.
  NOTE: If you are modifying an existing Home-Connect App then it may take up to 2 hours for the changes to take effect, so make sure you wait long enough.

• Some of my appliances are not showing up after I added the integration This is most commonly caused by two reasons:

  1. The appliance must be powered on and connected to the Home Connect service to be discovered. Once the missing devices are turned on and connected, they will automatically be discovered and added by the integration. This can be verified in the Home Connect mobile app but only while the wifi on the phone is turned OFF. If the devices are active in the mobile app while the phone's wifi is turned off then please open an issue with a debug log to report it.
  2. Due to some unreasonable rate limits set by BSH, there is a limit of about 3 appliances loaded per minute. If you have more, expect the initial load to take longer. The integration will wait for the service to become available and continue loading the rest of the appliances. You may have to refresh your screen to see them in Home Assistant after they were added.

• The Home Connect mobile app has some controls/data/events that are missing in Home Assistant This integration doesn't know anything about any specific appliance, it is using the official Home Connect API to explore the available options for each appliance and automatically exposes them as appropriate Home Assistant entities. The type of entities is automatically determined by information received from the API. The Home Connect mobile app is using a private API that is not available to the public and has more capabilities than those in the official API. Therefor it is expected that there will be some data, controls or events that are available in the app but not in the integration, this is NOT a problem with the integration but a limitation of the API. DO NOT open bugs or feature requests related to such issues unless you can demonstrate that the missing item is actually available in the API

• I've restarted Home Assistant a few times and now all my appliances are unavailable This is, again, related to the Home Connect rate limits. Every time you restart Home Assistant the integration makes a few API calls to the service and if that happens too often it may block for up to 24 hours. The best way to fix this is to wait a day and restart Home Assistant again.

• I select a program or option but nothing happens on the appliance Make sure the appliance is turned on. Typically the integration will automatically detect appliances that are turned off or disconnected from the network and disable them in Home Assistant but it may happen that it fails to detect that and then attempting make any changes to setting will fail.

• I try to start the selected program by pressing the button but nothing happens Make sure Remote Start is enabled on the appliance

• Sensor related to program progress are showing up as unavailable These sensors only become available when the appliance is running a program.

• All the program, option and settings selection boxes, switches and numbers are disabled Make sure that Remote Control is allowed on the appliance. It is typically enabled by default but gets temporarily disabled when changing setting on the appliance itself.

• The Start button is disabled Make sure that Remote Control Start is allowed on the appliance, it's disabled by default.

• Sensor values or select boxes have values like BSH.Common.EnumType.PowerState.Off Start by reading where these values are coming from in the explanation of the sensor_value_translation config param above. You can also set that parameter as a workaround for missing translations in sensor values. Regardless if you decide to use the language parameter or not it would be great if you can report these values so they can be properly translated. Ideally, if you know how, please update the translation files directly (at least the English ones) and create a PR. If you don't know how then you can add them to issue #26 and I will add them to the translation files.

  Note: It is expected to see these values in sensor history data. This is currently a limitation/bug in Home Assistant which doesn't translate these values.

• Home Assistant display "Error" popup after installing the integration and completing the login flow to Home Connect
  When this issue occurs the log file will show a "Bad Request" "400" error.
  Make sure the email address you used when registereting your Home Connect account has ONLY lowercase letters.

Known Issues

• If you have more than 3 connected devices (or you just play a lot with settings), you may hit the daily API rate limit set by the Home Connect API. The limit is set to 1000 calls per day and when it is hit the API is blocked for 24h. During that time, the integration will not get updated with new states and you won't be able to select and options or start a program. If you hit this limit frequently, please open an issue with a debug log. I'll try to see if there is a way to reduce some calls. However, as of now, there is nothing I can do about it and the Home Connect team was unwilling to increase this limit, which hurts their best customers so there is nothing I can do about it.

Reporting issues / bugs

CAREFULLY Read the FAQ before submitting an bug report or opening a feature request, a lot of common issues are already covered there.

DO NOT open bugs or feature requests on missing data, controls or events, unless you can show either in the logs or in the API documentation that the missing item is actually available. Read the FAQ section for more details on this.

Before submitting any bug report please enable debug logging by adding the following to your configuration.yaml file then restart HA:

logger:
  default: warn
  logs:
    home_connect_async: debug
    home_connect_alt: debug
    custom_components.home_connect_alt: debug

When reporting an issue press the Home Connect Debug button and attach the HA log file to your issue report.

Beta Releases

Major changes will be released in beta versions to reduce the impact on existing users. It is strongly advised not to install the beta version unless you are a part of an issue that specifically calls for installing one and when you are, you should only install the specified version (as there may be several issues handled in separate beta versions at the same time). To install a beta version go to the HACS dashboard in the Home Assistant UI:

• Click on Integrations locat the "Home Connect Alt" integration.
• Click on the three dot menu for the integration and select "Redownload".
• In the popup dialog make sure "Show beta versions" is enabled and then select the version you need to install.

Contributing Translations

You are welcome to create PRs for new language translations or updates to existing ones however please note the following requirements:

• To add a new language translation always start by copying the English translation file and edit it.
• New ENUM value translations will not be accepted if they are not added to the English translation file first.
• Translations MUST be added and modified ONLY under the "entity.sensor" node of the translation file because those values will also be used to automatically overwrite the values under the "enity.select" node.
• The translated ENUM values must be added in the correct section (programs/options/settings/statuses)

Legal Notice

This integration is not built, maintained, provided or associated with BSH in any way.