DMXCore.Plugin.HomeAssistant 1.2.2

DMX Core 100 — Home Assistant Plugin

Built-in plugin that connects the device and Home Assistant in both directions:

• DMX Core → HA: publishes the device's entities to Home Assistant via MQTT Discovery. No custom component and no YAML on the Home Assistant side — entities appear automatically, grouped under one device. openHAB, ioBroker, and Domoticz consume the same discovery format.
• DMX Core → HA: fire Home Assistant scenes, scripts, and automations from the device — from a Stream Deck key, a touchscreen custom menu, an input trigger, a timeline, or a script — through HA's REST API.

User guide

(Source for the docs.dmxcore.com "Home Assistant" section.)

What you get

Once connected, Home Assistant shows one DMX Core 100 device with:

Everything updates live in both directions: move a fader on the device and the HA slider follows; change it in HA and the device follows. If the device goes offline (or this plugin is disabled) the entities show as unavailable.

And in the other direction, the DMX Core can trigger Home Assistant:

Setup

Prerequisites: an MQTT broker that both Home Assistant and the DMX Core can reach (most HA installs use the Mosquitto add-on), and Home Assistant's MQTT integration connected to it (Settings → Devices & Services → Add Integration → MQTT).

On the DMX Core:

1. Web UI → Settings → Remote Control: enable the external MQTT server and enter the broker's address, port, and credentials.
2. Settings → Plugins: make sure the Home Assistant plugin is enabled (it is by default). Optional settings: the discovery prefix (leave at homeassistant unless you changed it in HA) and per-category expose toggles if you don't want e.g. every cue showing up in HA.

That's it — within a few seconds the device appears in Home Assistant under Settings → Devices & Services → MQTT.

Plugin settings

All of these live under Settings → Plugins → Home Assistant.

Choosing which looks appear in Home Assistant

By default every preset, cue, and timeline is published as an HA scene. Use Settings → Plugins → Home Assistant:

1. Turn Expose presets, cues, and timelines off to hide the whole category (schedules, zones, Control Values, and system entities have their own toggles).

2. Leave it on and fill Only these presets, cues, and timelines to publish a subset. Separate entries with commas, semicolons, or new lines. Each entry can be a display name, a full code, or a shortcode:

   Movie Night, preset.PARTY
   cue.SUNSET
   

   Leave the list empty to publish all looks.

Optional: a separate Home Assistant MQTT broker

Use Home Assistant MQTT broker only when the Core's Remote Control MQTT broker is a different server from Home Assistant's Mosquitto (and port, credentials, TLS if needed). Discovery is then published to both brokers. Leave the broker field empty to use only the Core MQTT server.

Do not point this at the same broker as Settings → Remote Control: both clients would subscribe to the same command topics (every HA scene press would run twice) and fight over the retained availability messages.

Triggering Home Assistant from the DMX Core (optional)

This direction uses Home Assistant's REST API, so the device needs to know where HA is and have a token:

1. In Home Assistant, open your profile → Security and create a Long-lived access token (name it e.g. DMX Core). Copy it — HA shows it only once.
2. On the DMX Core web UI, Settings → Plugins → Home Assistant: enter the Home Assistant URL (e.g. http://homeassistant.local:8123) and paste the token into Long-lived access token. Prefer an IPv4 address if homeassistant.local does not resolve on the device. The plugin status shows HA API ok once the token is accepted.
3. Input/Output → Output Events → New: set the type to Home Assistant and pick the scene, script, or automation from the Target list. Save, and use Test to fire it once.
4. Bind it anywhere an action can be configured — a control surface button, a custom menu item, an input trigger, a timeline event, or fireOutputEvent("<code>") in a script — using the Fire Output Event action.

For scripts that take variables, put a JSON object in the Output Event's payload (e.g. {"variables": {"level": 50}}); it is merged into the service call. Anything else HA can do can be wrapped in an HA script, which then shows up in the target list.

If HA is unreachable when an event fires, the rest of the button's work (playing a cue, etc.) still happens; the failure is logged and shown by the Test button.

Optional: HA scene when playback stops fires a chosen HA scene, script, or automation after a short settle when the last cue ends or Now Playing is idle. Set it to a friendly name or entity id (for example All Off or scene.all_off). URL and token must already be set; if another cue is still playing (or starts during the settle), the stop scene is cancelled.

Ideas

• Sunset ambiance: HA automation at sunset → activate the Evening preset scene (or let the DMX Core's own sunrise/sunset schedules do it and just flip the schedule switch from HA when you're on vacation).
• Movie night: one HA script that dims your living room Hue lights and sets the DMX Core master dimmer to 20%.
• Party button: a dashboard button that fires a cue, sets the bar zone to full, and switches the audio source Control Value to Spotify.
• Presence: when the alarm arms (everyone left), stop playback and disable the schedules.
• Movie night, from the wall: a Stream Deck key or touchscreen menu item that plays the Movie preset and fires the HA scene that closes the blinds and dims the Hue lights (two actions on one button, or one HA script that does both).

Troubleshooting

• No device in HA: check the MQTT integration is connected to the same broker as the DMX Core, and that the DMX Core web UI shows the plugin as connected (Settings → Plugins). If Core MQTT and HA's Mosquitto are different brokers, fill in Home Assistant MQTT broker — but only then; the same server in both places duplicates commands.
• Entities show unavailable: the broker lost the device — check network and the Remote Control MQTT settings. The device reconnects automatically.
• Deleted a preset but it lingers in HA: it is removed automatically on the next catalog change; if HA itself cached it, reload the MQTT integration.
• Plugin status says HA API: ... rejected the access token: the token was revoked or pasted incompletely — create a new one in your HA profile.
• Output Event target list is empty / shows "Could not load targets": the device can't reach the HA URL (check it opens from a browser on the same network, including the port) or the plugin is disabled. You can still type the entity id (e.g. scene.movie_night) by hand. Prefer an IPv4 address if homeassistant.local does not resolve on the device.
• HA scene when playback stops does nothing: URL and token must be set, the value must match a scene/script/automation name or entity id, and a new cue starting during the settle (or another cue still playing) cancels it.

Development

dotnet test tests/DMXCore100.HomeAssistantPlugin.Tests
./pack.sh            # or pack.ps1 — produces artifacts/home-assistant-plugin.dmxplugin

tools/DMXCore100.HomeAssistantPlugin.DevHost is an interactive console harness (F5 in Visual Studio) against an in-memory host — simulate HA birth messages, commands, and state changes without a device or broker. Pass <url> (or use the ha command) to point the Core→HA side at a real Home Assistant; the long-lived token is read from the HA_TOKEN environment variable or a masked prompt, never from the command line. Then try targets / fire scene.xyz.

Requires SDK contract 1.7 (IPluginHost.Actions). Until that SDK version is on nuget.org, pack it from the Software repo into local-feed/ (see nuget.config).

Topic layout (serial = device hardware id, lowercase):

{prefix}/{component}/dmxcore-{serial}/{objectId}/config   retained discovery config
dmxcore/{serial}/{objectId}/state                         retained state
dmxcore/{serial}/{objectId}/set                           commands from HA
dmxcore/{serial}/availability                             device online/offline (host-managed last will)
dmxcore/{serial}/plugin/home-assistant/availability       plugin online/offline (host-managed)

Credits

• AlexWHughes — HA scene when playback stops, optional Home Assistant MQTT broker, and expose allow-list.
• HakanL (Hakan Lindestaf) — original MQTT Discovery plugin that publishes the Core into Home Assistant, and the REST action provider (scenes, scripts, and automations as Output Event targets).
• Home Assistant MQTT Discovery — config, state, command, and availability topic layout.
• MQTTnet — optional second MQTT client when the Core Remote Control broker is not Home Assistant's.

Every push to main packs the .dmxplugin and publishes it to the nuget.org plugin registry, from where DMX Core 100 devices install and update it.

License

MIT