Custom Output

Warning

Custom Components are deprecated, not recommended for new configurations and will be removed from ESPHome in the 2025.1.0 release. Please look at creating a real ESPHome component and “importing” it into your configuration with External Components.

You can find some basic documentation on creating your own components at Contributing to ESPHome.

Warning

While we try to keep the ESPHome YAML configuration options as stable as possible, the ESPHome API is less stable. If something in the APIs needs to be changed in order for something else to work, we will do so.

This component can be used to create custom binary and float outputs in ESPHome using the C++ (Arduino) API.

Please first read Custom Sensor Component guide, the same principles apply here.

The example below is an example of a custom float output; this custom output is essentially the same as the ESP8266 software PWM output.

#include "esphome.h"
using namespace esphome;

class MyCustomFloatOutput : public Component, public FloatOutput {
 public:
  void setup() override {
    // This will be called by App.setup()
    pinMode(5, OUTPUT);
  }

  void write_state(float state) override {
    // state is the amount this output should be on, from 0.0 to 1.0
    // we need to convert it to an integer first
    int value = state * 1024;
    analogWrite(5, value);
  }
};

// Custom binary output, for exposing binary states
class MyCustomBinaryOutput : public Component, public BinaryOutput {
 public:
  void setup() override {
    // This will be called by App.setup()
    pinMode(5, OUTPUT);
  }

  void write_state(bool state) override {
    digitalWrite(5, state);
  }
};

(Store this file in your configuration directory, for example my_output.h)

And in YAML:

# Example configuration entry
esphome:
  includes:
    - my_output.h

output:
- platform: custom
  type: float
  lambda: |-
    auto my_custom_float_output = new MyCustomFloatOutput();
    App.register_component(my_custom_float_output);
    return {my_custom_float_output};

  outputs:
    id: custom_float

- platform: custom
  type: binary
  lambda: |-
    auto my_custom_binary_output = new MyCustomBinaryOutput();
    App.register_component(my_custom_binary_output);
    return {my_custom_binary_output};

  outputs:
    id: custom_binary

Configuration variables:

  • type (Required, string): The type of output. One of binary and float.

  • lambda (Required, lambda): The lambda to run for instantiating the output(s).

  • outputs (Required, list): A list of outputs to initialize. The length here must equal the number of items in the return statement of the lambda.

See output::BinaryOutput and output::FloatOutput.

See Also