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

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layout	title	description	date	sidebar	comments	sharing	footer	logo	ha_category	ha_release
page	HTTP Binary Sensor	Instructions how to integrate HTTP binary sensors within Home Assistant.	2016-02-05 12:15	true	false	true	true	http.png	Binary Sensor	pre 0.7

The URL for a binary sensor looks like the example below:

http://IP_ADDRESS:8123/api/states/binary_sensor.DEVICE_NAME

You should choose a unique device name (DEVICE_NAME) to avoid clashes with other devices.

The JSON payload must contain the new state and can have a friendly name. The friendly name is used in the frontend to name the sensor.

{"state": "on", "attributes": {"friendly_name": "Radio"}}

For a quick test curl can be useful to "simulate" a device.

$ curl -X POST -H "x-ha-access: YOUR_PASSWORD" \
    -d '{"state": "off", "attributes": {"friendly_name": "Radio"}}' \
    http://localhost:8123/api/states/binary_sensor.radio

To check if the sensor is working, use again curl to retrieve the current state.

$ curl -X GET -H "x-ha-access: YOUR_PASSWORD" \
        http://localhost:8123/api/states/binary_sensor.radio
{
    "attributes": {
        "friendly_name": "Radio"
    },
    "entity_id": "binary_sensor.radio",
    "last_changed": "16:45:51 05-02-2016",
    "last_updated": "16:45:51 05-02-2016",
    "state": "off"
}

{% linkable_title Examples %}

In this section you find some real life examples of how to use this sensor. Beside curl.

{% linkable_title Using Python request module %}

As already shown on the API page, it's very simple to use Python and the Requests module for the interaction with Home Assistant.

response = requests.post(
        'http://localhost:8123/api/states/binary_sensor.radio',
        headers={'x-ha-access': 'YOUR_PASSWORD', 'content-type': 'application/json'},
        data=json.dumps({'state': 'on', 'attributes': {'friendly_name': 'Radio'}}))
print(response.text)

{% linkable_title Using httpie %}

httpie is a user-friendly CLI HTTP client.

$ http -v POST http://localhost:8123/api/states/binary_sensor.radio \
      x-ha-access:YOUR_PASSWORD state=off \
      attributes:='{"friendly_name": "Radio"}'