home-assistant.io/source/_components/binary_sensor.markdown

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page	Binary Sensor	Instructions on how-to setup binary sensors with Home Assistant.	2015-11-20 14:00	true	false	true	true

Binary sensors gather information about the state of devices which have a "digital" return value (either 1 or 0). These can be switches, contacts, pins, etc. These sensors only have two states: 0/off/low/closed/false and 1/on/high/open/true. Knowing that there are only two states allows Home Assistant to represent these sensors in a better way in the frontend according to their functionality.

The way these sensors are displayed in the frontend can be modified in the customize section. The following device classes are supported for binary sensors:

• None: Generic on/off. This is the default and doesn't need to be set.
• cold: On means cold
• connectivity: On means connection present, Off means no connection
• gas: On means gas detected
• heat: On means hot
• light: Lightness threshold
• moisture: On means wet
• motion: On means motion detected
• moving: On means moving, Off means stopped
• occupancy: On means occupied, Off means not occupied
• opening: On means open, Off means closed
• power: Power, over-current, etc.
• safety: On means unsafe, Off means safe
• smoke: On means smoke detected
• sound: On means sound detected, Off means no sound
• vibration: On means vibration detected, Off means no vibration

For analog sensors please check the component overview.