WiFi Component

This core ESPHome component sets up WiFi connections to access points for you. You need to have a network configuration (either Wifi or Ethernet) or ESPHome will fail in the config validation stage. You also can’t have both Wifi and Ethernet setup in same time (even if your ESP has both wired).

It’s recommended to provide a static IP for your node, as it can dramatically improve connection times.

# Example configuration entry
wifi:
  ssid: MyHomeNetwork
  password: VerySafePassword

  # Optional manual IP
  manual_ip:
    static_ip: 192.168.0.123
    gateway: 192.168.0.1
    subnet: 255.255.255.0
# It is highly recommended to use secrets
wifi:
  ssid: !secret wifi_ssid
  password: !secret wifi_password

Configuration variables:

  • ssid (Optional, string): The name (or service set identifier) of the WiFi access point your device should connect to.

  • password (Optional, string): The password (or PSK) for your WiFi network. Leave empty for no password.

  • networks (Optional): Configure multiple WiFi networks to connect to, the best one that is reachable will be connected to. See Connecting to Multiple Networks.

  • manual_ip (Optional): Manually configure the static IP of the node.

    • static_ip (Required, IPv4 address): The static IP of your node.

    • gateway (Required, IPv4 address): The gateway of the local network.

    • subnet (Required, IPv4 address): The subnet of the local network.

    • dns1 (Optional, IPv4 address): The main DNS server to use.

    • dns2 (Optional, IPv4 address): The backup DNS server to use.

  • use_address (Optional, string): Manually override what address to use to connect to the ESP. Defaults to auto-generated value. Example, if you have changed your static IP and want to flash OTA to the previously configured IP address.

  • ap (Optional): Enable an access point mode on the node.

    • ssid (Optional, string): The name of the access point to create. Leave empty to use the device name.

    • password (Optional, string): The password for the access point. Leave empty for no password.

    • channel (Optional, int): The channel the AP should operate on from 1 to 14. Defaults to 1.

    • manual_ip (Optional): Manually set the IP options for the AP. Same options as manual_ip for station mode.

    • ap_timeout (Optional, Time): The time after which to enable the configured fallback hotspot. Can be disabled by setting this to 0s, which requires manually starting the AP by other means (eg: from a button press). Defaults to 1min.

  • domain (Optional, string): Set the domain of the node hostname used for uploading. For example, if it’s set to .local, all uploads will be sent to <HOSTNAME>.local. Defaults to .local.

  • reboot_timeout (Optional, Time): The amount of time to wait before rebooting when no WiFi connection exists. Can be disabled by setting this to 0s, but note that the low level IP stack currently seems to have issues with WiFi where a full reboot is required to get the interface back working. Defaults to 15min. Does not apply when in access point mode.

  • power_save_mode (Optional, string): The power save mode for the WiFi interface. See Power Save Mode

  • output_power (Optional, string): The amount of TX power for the WiFi interface from 8.5dB to 20.5dB. Default for ESP8266 is 20dB, 20.5dB might cause unexpected restarts.

  • fast_connect (Optional, boolean): If enabled, directly connects to WiFi network without doing a full scan first. This is required for hidden networks and can significantly improve connection times. Defaults to off. The downside is that this option connects to the first network the ESP sees, even if that network is very far away and better ones are available.

  • passive_scan (Optional, boolean): If enabled, then the device will perform WiFi scans in a passive fashion. Defaults to false.

  • enable_btm (Optional, bool): Only on esp32 with esp-idf. Enable 802.11v BSS Transition Management support.

  • enable_rrm (Optional, bool): Only on esp32 with esp-idf. Enable 802.11k Radio Resource Management support.

  • on_connect (Optional, Automation): An action to be performed when a connection is established.

  • on_disconnect (Optional, Automation): An action to be performed when the connection is dropped.

  • enable_on_boot (Optional, boolean): If enabled, the WiFi interface will be enabled on boot. Defaults to true.

  • id (Optional, ID): Manually specify the ID used for code generation.

Access Point Mode

ESPHome has an optional “Access Point Mode”. If you include ap: in your wifi configuration, ESPHome will automatically set up an access point that you can connect to. Additionally, you can specify both a “normal” station mode and AP mode at the same time. This will cause ESPHome to only enable the access point when no connection to the WiFi router can be made.

wifi:
  ap:
    ssid: "Livingroom Fallback Hotspot"
    password: "W1PBGyrokfLz"

You can also create a simple ap config which will set up the access point to have the devices name as the ssid with no password.

wifi:
  ap: {}

# or if you still want the ap to have a password

wifi:
  ap:
    password: "W1PBGyrokfLz"

User Entered Credentials

Some components such as Captive Portal, Improv via Serial and Improv via BLE enable the user to send and save Wi-Fi credentials to the device. Beginning in 2022.11.0, as long as no credentials are set in the config file, and firmware is uploaded without erasing the flash (via OTA), the device will keep the saved credentials.

Manual IPs

If you’re having problems with your node not connecting to WiFi or the connection process taking a long time, it can be a good idea to assign a static IP address to the ESP. This way, the ESP doesn’t need to go through the slow DHCP process.

You can do so with the manual_ip: option in the WiFi configuration.

wifi:
  # ...
  manual_ip:
    # Set this to the IP of the ESP
    static_ip: 10.0.0.42
    # Set this to the IP address of the router. Often ends with .1
    gateway: 10.0.0.1
    # The subnet of the network. 255.255.255.0 works for most home networks.
    subnet: 255.255.255.0

After putting a manual IP in your configuration, the ESP will no longer need to negotiate a dynamic IP address with the router, thus improving the time until connection.

Additionally, this can help with Over-the-Air Updates if for example the network doesn’t allow for .local addresses. When a manual IP is in your configuration, the OTA process will automatically choose that as the target for the upload.

Power Save Mode

The WiFi interface of all ESPs offer three power save modes to reduce the amount of power spent on WiFi. While some options can reduce the power usage of the ESP, they generally also decrease the reliability of the WiFi connection, with frequent disconnections from the router in the highest power saving mode.

  • NONE (least power saving, Default for ESP8266)

  • LIGHT (Default for ESP32)

  • HIGH (most power saving)

wifi:
  # ...
  power_save_mode: none

Connecting to Multiple Networks

You can give ESPHome a number of WiFi networks to connect to. ESPHome will then attempt to connect to the one with the highest signal strength.

To enable this mode, remove the ssid and password options from your wifi configuration and move everything under the networks key:

# Example configuration entry
wifi:
  networks:
  - ssid: FirstNetworkToConnectTo
    password: VerySafePassword
  - ssid: SecondNetworkToConnectTo
    password: VerySafePassword
  # Other options
  # ...

Configuration variables:

  • ssid (Optional, string): The SSID or WiFi network name.

  • password (Optional, string): The password to use for authentication. Leave empty for no password.

  • manual_ip (Optional): Manually configure the static IP of the node when using this network. Note that when using different static IP addresses on each network, it is required to set use_address, as ESPHome cannot infer to which network the node is connected.

    • static_ip (Required, IPv4 address): The static IP of your node.

    • gateway (Required, IPv4 address): The gateway of the local network.

    • subnet (Required, IPv4 address): The subnet of the local network.

    • dns1 (Optional, IPv4 address): The main DNS server to use.

    • dns2 (Optional, IPv4 address): The backup DNS server to use.

  • eap (Optional): See Enterprise Authentication.

  • channel (Optional, int): The channel of the network (1-14). If given, only connects to networks that are on this channel.

  • bssid (Optional, string): The connection’s BSSID (MAC address). BSSIDs must consist of six two-digit hexadecimal values separated by colon characters (”:”). All letters must be in upper case.

  • hidden (Optional, boolean): Whether this network is hidden. Defaults to false. If you add this option you also have to specify ssid.

  • priority (Optional, float): The priority of this network. After each time, the network with the highest priority is chosen. If the connection fails, the priority is decreased by one. Defaults to 0.

Enterprise Authentication

WPA2_EAP Enterprise Authentication is supported on ESP32s and ESP8266s. In order to configure this feature you must use the Connecting to Multiple Networks style configuration. The ESP32 is known to work with PEAP, EAP-TTLS, and the certificate based EAP-TLS. These are advanced settings and you will usually need to consult your enterprise network administrator.

# Example EAP configuration
wifi:
  networks:
  - ssid: EAP-TTLS_EnterpriseNetwork
    eap:
      username: bob
      password: VerySafePassword
      ttls_phase_2: mschapv2
  - ssid: EAP-TLS_EnterpriseNetwork
    eap:
      identity: bob
      certificate_authority: ca_cert.pem
      certificate: cert.pem
      key: key.pem

Configuration variables:

  • identity (Optional, string): The outer identity to pass to the EAP authentication server. This is required for EAP-TLS.

  • username (Optional, string): The username to present to the authenticating server.

  • password (Optional, string): The password to present to the authentication server. For EAP-TLS this password may be set to decrypt to private key instead.

  • certificate_authority (Optional, string): Path to a PEM encoded certificate to use when validating the authentication server.

  • certificate (Optional, string): Path to a PEM encoded certificate to use for EAP-TLS authentication.

  • key (Optional, string): Path to a PEM encoded private key matching certificate for EAP-TLS authentication. Optionally encrypted with password.

  • ttls_phase_2 (Optional, string): The Phase 2 Authentication Method for EAP-TTLS. Can be pap, eap, mschap, mschapv2 or chap, defaults to mschapv2.

on_connect / on_disconnect Trigger

This trigger is activated when a WiFi connection is established or dropped.

wifi:
  # ...
  on_connect:
    - switch.turn_on: switch1
  on_disconnect:
    - switch.turn_off: switch1

wifi.disable Action

This action turns off the WiFi interface on demand.

on_...:
  then:
    - wifi.disable:

Note

Be aware that if you disable WiFi, the API timeout will need to be disabled otherwise the device will reboot.

wifi.enable Action

This action turns on the WiFi interface on demand.

on_...:
  then:
    - wifi.enable:

Note

The configuration option enable_on_boot can be set to false if you do not want wifi to be enabled on boot.

wifi.connected Condition

This Condition checks if the WiFi client is currently connected to a station.

on_...:
  if:
    condition:
      wifi.connected:
    then:
      - logger.log: WiFi is connected!

The lambda equivalent for this is id(wifi_id).is_connected().

wifi.enabled Condition

This Condition checks if WiFi is currently enabled or not.

on_...:
  - if:
      condition: wifi.enabled
      then:
        - wifi.disable:
      else:
        - wifi.enable:

The lambda equivalent for this is !id(wifi_id).is_disabled().

See Also