Event Component

ESPHome supports the creation of event entities in Home Assistant. These entities allow for the triggering of custom events within the Home Assistant ecosystem, enabling complex automations and integrations. An event entity is represented as a stateless entity associated with a device that has a pre-defined set of event types which can be triggered in Home Assistant via automations.

Note

Events in ESPHome are designed to trigger an action in Home Assistant, and have a unidirectional flow from ESPHome to Home Assistant. Home Assistant event entities are different from events on event bus. If you just want to trigger an event on the Home Assistant event bus, you should use a Home Assistant event instead.

Note

Home Assistant Core 2024.5 or higher is required for ESPHome event entities to work.

Base Event Configuration

Each event in ESPHome needs to be configured with a list of event types it can trigger and an optional device class.

# Example event configuration
event:
  - platform: ...
    name: Motion Detected Event
    id: my_event

    # Optional variables:
    icon: "mdi:motion-sensor"
    device_class: "motion"
    on_event:
      then:
        - logger.log: "Event triggered"

Configuration variables:

One of id or name is required.

  • id (Required, ID): Manually specify the ID used for code generation, allowing for further customization or interaction with this event within ESPHome scripts or lambda functions.

  • name (Required, string): The name for the event.

    Note

    If you have a friendly_name set for your device and you want the event to use that name, you can set name: None.

  • icon (Optional, icon): Manually set the icon to use for the event in the frontend.

  • internal (Optional, boolean): Mark this component as internal. Internal components will not be exposed to the frontend (like Home Assistant). Only specifying an id without a name will implicitly set this to true.

  • disabled_by_default (Optional, boolean): If true, then this entity should not be added to any client’s frontend, (usually Home Assistant) without the user manually enabling it (via the Home Assistant UI).

  • entity_category (Optional, string): The category of the entity. See https://developers.home-assistant.io/docs/core/entity/#generic-properties for a list of available options. Set to "" to remove the default entity category.

  • device_class (Optional, string): The device class for the event. The following device classes are supported by event entities:

    • None: Generic event. This is the default and doesn’t need to be set.

    • button: For remote control buttons.

    • doorbell: Specifically for buttons that are used as a doorbell.

    • motion: For motion events detected by a motion sensor.

    See https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/event/#device-class for a list of available options.

Automations:

  • on_event (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when an event is triggered.

MQTT options:

Event Automation

on_event

This automation will be triggered when an event of the specified types is triggered. In Lambdas you can get the event type from the trigger with event_type.

event:
  - platform: template
    # ...
    on_event:
      then:
        - lambda: |-
            ESP_LOGD("main", "Event %s triggered.", event_type.c_str());

Configuration variables: see Automation.

event.trigger Action

This action allows for the triggering of an event from within an automation.

- event.trigger:
    id: my_event
    event_type: "custom_event"

Configuration variables:

  • id (Required, ID): The ID of the event.

  • event_type (Required, string): The type of event to trigger.

lambda Calls

From lambdas, you can trigger an event.

  • trigger(std::string event_type): Trigger an event with the specified type.

    // Within lambda, trigger the event.
id(my_event).trigger("custom_event");

See Also