RESTful Sensor

The rest sensor platform is consuming a given endpoint which is exposed by a RESTful API of a device, an application, or a web service. The sensor has support for GET and POST requests.

To enable this sensor, add the following lines to your configuration.yaml file for a GET request:

# Example configuration.yaml entry
sensor:
  - platform: rest
    resource: http://IP_ADDRESS/ENDPOINT

or for a POST request:

# Example configuration.yaml entry
sensor:
  - platform: rest
    resource: http://IP_ADDRESS/ENDPOINT
    method: POST
    payload: '{ "device" : "heater" }'

Configuration Variables

resource

(string)(Required)The resource or endpoint that contains the value.

Default value: string

method

(string)(Optional)The method of the request.

Default value: GET

name

(string)(Optional)Name of the REST sensor.

Default value: REST Sensor

value_template

(template)(Optional)Defines a template to extract the value.

payload

(string)(Optional)The payload to send with a POST request. Depends on the service, but usually formed as JSON.

verify_ssl

(boolean)(Optional)Verify the certification of the endpoint.

Default value: true

unit_of_measurement

(string)(Optional)Defines the units of measurement of the sensor, if any.

authentication

(string)(Optional)Type of the HTTP authentication. basic or digest.

username

(string)(Optional)The username for accessing the REST endpoint.

password

(string)(Optional)The password for accessing the REST endpoint.

headers

(list | string)(Optional)The headers for the requests.

json_attributes

(list | string)A list of keys to extract values from a JSON dictionary result and then set as sensor attributes.

force_update

(boolean)Sends update events even if the value hasn’t changed. Useful if you want to have meaningful value graphs in history.

Default value: false

Make sure that the URL exactly matches your endpoint or resource.

curl can help you identify the variable you want to display in your Home Assistant frontend. The example below shows the JSON response of a device that is running with aREST.

$ curl -X GET http://192.168.1.31/temperature/
{"temperature": 77, "id": "sensor02", "name": "livingroom", "connected": true}

Examples

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

External IP address

You can find your external IP address using the service JSON Test at their http://ip.jsontest.com/ URL.

sensor:
  - platform: rest
    resource: http://ip.jsontest.com
    name: External IP
    value_template: '{{ value_json.ip }}'

Single value from a local Glances instance

The glances sensor is doing the exact same thing for all exposed values.

sensor:
  - platform: rest
    resource: http://IP_ADRRESS:61208/api/2/mem/used
    name: Used mem
    value_template: '{{ value_json.used| multiply(0.000000954) | round(0) }}'
    unit_of_measurement: MB

Value from another Home Assistant instance

The Home Assistant API exposes the data from your attached sensors. If you are running multiple Home Assistant instances which are not connected you can still get information from them.

If the Home Assistant instance in the resource variable is protected by an API password, you can append ?api_password=YOUR_PASSWORD to the resource URL to authenticate or use headers:.

sensor:
  - platform: rest
    resource: http://IP_ADDRESS:8123/api/states/sensor.weather_temperature
    name: Temperature
    value_template: '{{ value_json.state }}'
    unit_of_measurement: "°C"

Accessing a HTTP authentication protected endpoint

The REST sensor supports HTTP authentication and customized headers.

sensor:
  - platform: rest
    resource: http://IP_ADDRESS:5000/sensor
    username: ha1
    password: test1
    authentication: basic
    headers:
      User-Agent: Home Assistant
      Content-Type: application/json

The headers will contain all relevant details. This will also give you the ability to access endpoints that are protected by tokens.

Content-Length: 1024
Host: IP_ADDRESS1:5000
Authorization: Basic aGExOnRlc3Qx
Accept-Encoding: identity
Content-Type: application/json
User-Agent: Home Assistant

Use GitHub to get the latest release of Home Assistant

This sample is very similar to the updater component but the information is received from GitHub.

sensor:
  - platform: rest
    resource: https://api.github.com/repos/home-assistant/home-assistant/releases/latest
    username: YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME
    password: YOUR_GITHUB_ACCESS_TOKEN
    authentication: basic
    value_template: '{{ value_json.tag_name }}'
    headers:
      Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json
      Content-Type: application/json
      User-Agent: Home Assistant REST sensor

Fetch multiple JSON values and present them as attributes

JSON Test returns the current time, date and milliseconds since epoch from http://date.jsontest.com/.

sensor:
  - platform: rest
    name: JSON time
    json_attributes:
      - date
      - milliseconds_since_epoch
    resource: http://date.jsontest.com/
    value_template: '{{ value_json.time }}'
  - platform: template
    sensors:
      date:
        friendly_name: 'Date'
        value_template: '{{ states.sensor.json_time.attributes["date"] }}'
      milliseconds:
        friendly_name: 'milliseconds'
        value_template: '{{ states.sensor.json_time.attributes["milliseconds_since_epoch"] }}'

This sample fetches a weather report from OpenWeatherMap, maps the resulting data into attributes of the RESTful sensor and then creates a set of template sensors that monitor the attributes and present the values in a usable form.

sensor:
  - platform: rest
    name: OWM_report
    json_attributes: 
      - main
      - weather
    value_template: '{{ value_json["weather"][0]["description"].title() }}'
    resource: http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?zip=80302,us&APPID=VERYSECRETAPIKEY
  - platform: template
    sensors:
      owm_weather:
        value_template: '{{ states.sensor.owm_report.attributes.weather[0]["description"].title() }}'
        icon_template: '{{ "http://openweathermap.org/img/w/"+states.sensor.owm_report.attributes.weather[0]["icon"]+".png" }}'
        entity_id: sensor.owm_report
      owm_temp:
        friendly_name: 'Outside temp'
        value_template: '{{ states.sensor.owm_report.attributes.main["temp"]-273.15 }}'
        unit_of_measurement: "°C"
        entity_id: sensor.owm_report
      owm_pressure:
        friendly_name: 'Outside pressure'
        value_template: '{{ states.sensor.owm_report.attributes.main["pressure"] }}'
        unit_of_measurement: "hP"
        entity_id: sensor.owm_report
      owm_humidity:
        friendly_name: 'Outside humidity'
        value_template: '{{ states.sensor.owm_report.attributes.main["humidity"] }}'
        unit_of_measurement: "%"
        entity_id: sensor.owm_report