Plant monitor alert with Home Assistant and M5Stack Atom Lite

After following this guide on YouTube from The Home Automation Guy, I thought I’d try and take it one step further and add an alert function using the M5Stack’s LED.

In the ESP Home configuration for the Atom, I added the following section to add a control for the LED:

light:
  - platform: neopixelbus
    type: GRB
    variant: SK6812
    pin: 27
    num_leds: 1
    id: status_led
    name: "Status LED"
    internal: False
    default_transition_length: 2s
    effects: 
      - pulse:
          name: "Slow Pulse"
          transition_length: 1s
          update_interval: 3s
    initial_state:
      state: False

This appears in Home Assistant as a light entity.

As the M5Stack Atom Lite is in the bedroom (mounted behind the TV), I didn’t want it lighting up in the night when we’re sleeping. I added a Helper Schedule defining awake hours - schedule.awake_hours.

Then I added an automation to Home Assistant using the automation builder. It produced the following YAML for me:

alias: Water Swiss Cheese Plant
description: ""
triggers:
  - trigger: state
    entity_id:
      - plant.swiss_cheese_plant
    from: null
    to: null
    id: swiss_cheese_plant_state_change
  - trigger: state
    entity_id:
      - schedule.awake_hours
    from: null
    to: null
conditions: []
actions:
  - if:
      - condition: state
        entity_id: schedule.awake_hours
        state: "on"
    then:
      - if:
          - condition: state
            entity_id: plant.swiss_cheese_plant
            state: problem
        then:
          - action: light.turn_on
            metadata: {}
            data:
              rgb_color:
                - 255
                - 0
                - 0
              effect: Slow Pulse
            target:
              entity_id: light.m5stackatom_status_led
        else:
          - if:
              - condition: state
                entity_id: plant.swiss_cheese_plant
                state: ok
              - condition: trigger
                id:
                  - swiss_cheese_plant_state_change
            then:
              - action: light.turn_on
                metadata: {}
                data:
                  rgb_color:
                    - 0
                    - 255
                    - 0
                  effect: None
                target:
                  entity_id: light.m5stackatom_status_led
              - delay:
                  hours: 0
                  minutes: 1
                  seconds: 0
                  milliseconds: 0
              - action: light.turn_off
                metadata: {}
                data: {}
                target:
                  entity_id: light.m5stackatom_status_led
            else:
              - action: light.turn_off
                metadata: {}
                data: {}
                target:
                  entity_id: light.m5stackatom_status_led
    else:
      - action: light.turn_off
        metadata: {}
        data: {}
        target:
          entity_id: light.m5stackatom_status_led
mode: single

This will be triggered either by the plant state changing or by the awake hours schedule changing.

If it is within the awake hours (schedule.awake_hours is on) then it checks to see if the plant is in a problem state and if so turns on the led with a red slow pulse effect. If the plant isn’t in a problem state then it checks to see if the plant triggered the automation and if so sets the led to green for one minute then turns it off. If the plant is in an ok state and didn’t trigger the automation (i.e. the schedule did) then the led is turned off.

Finally if the automation is triggered but it’s outside the schedule time (or the schedule changes to off) then the led is turned off.