SwitchBot MQTT client

MQTT client controlling SwitchBot button automators and curtain motors

Compatible with Home Assistant's MQTT Switch and MQTT Cover platform.

Setup

$ pip3 install --user --upgrade switchbot-mqtt

Usage

$ switchbot-mqtt --mqtt-host HOSTNAME_OR_IP_ADDRESS
# or
$ switchbot-mqtt --mqtt-host HOSTNAME_OR_IP_ADDRESS --mqtt-disable-tls

Use sudo hcitool lescan or select device settings > 3 dots on top right in SwitchBot app to determine your SwitchBot's mac address.

Button Automator

Send ON or OFF to topic homeassistant/switch/switchbot/aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff/set.

$ mosquitto_pub -h MQTT_BROKER -t homeassistant/switch/switchbot/aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff/set -m ON

The command-line option --fetch-device-info enables battery level reports on topic homeassistant/switch/switchbot/MAC_ADDRESS/battery-percentage after every command. The report may be requested manually by sending a MQTT message to the topic homeassistant/switch/switchbot/MAC_ADDRESS/request-device-info (requires --fetch-device-info)

Curtain Motor

Send OPEN, CLOSE, or STOP to topic homeassistant/cover/switchbot-curtain/aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff/set:

$ mosquitto_pub -h MQTT_BROKER -t homeassistant/cover/switchbot-curtain/aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff/set -m CLOSE

Or a position in percent (0 fully closed, 100 fully opened) to topic homeassistant/cover/switchbot-curtain/aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff/position/set-percent:

$ mosquitto_pub -h MQTT_BROKER -t homeassistant/cover/switchbot-curtain/aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff/position/set-percent -m 42

The command-line option --fetch-device-info enables position reports on topic homeassistant/cover/switchbot-curtain/MAC_ADDRESS/position after STOP commands and battery level reports on topic homeassistant/cover/switchbot-curtain/MAC_ADDRESS/battery-percentage after every command. These reports may be requested manually by sending a MQTT message to the topic homeassistant/cover/switchbot-curtain/MAC_ADDRESS/request-device-info (requires --fetch-device-info)

Device Passwords

In case some of your Switchbot devices are password-protected, create a JSON file mapping MAC addresses to passwords and provide its path via the --device-password-file option:

{
  "11:22:33:44:55:66": "password",
  "aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff": "secret",
  "00:00:00:0f:f1:ce": "random string"
}

$ switchbot-mqtt --device-password-file /some/where/switchbot-passwords.json …

MQTT Authentication

switchbot-mqtt --mqtt-username me --mqtt-password secret …
# or
switchbot-mqtt --mqtt-username me --mqtt-password-file /var/lib/secrets/mqtt/password …

⚠️ --mqtt-password leaks the password to other users on the same machine, if /proc is mounted with hidepid=0 (default).

MQTT Topic

By default, switchbot-mqtt prepends homeassistant/ to all MQTT topics. This common prefix can be changed via --mqtt-topic-prefix:

# listens on living-room/switch/switchbot/aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff/set
switchbot-mqtt --mqtt-topic-prefix living-room/ …
# listens on switch/switchbot/aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff/set
switchbot-mqtt --mqtt-topic-prefix '' …

Service Status Report

After connecting to the MQTT broker, switchbot-mqtt will report online on topic homeassistant/switchbot-mqtt/status. When disconnecting (graceful shutdown or unexpected loss of connection), offline will be reported on the same topic.

Home Assistant 🏡

Rationale

Why not use the official SwitchBot integration?

Older versions of pySwitchbot (before bleak replaced bluepy) required access to the host's network stack. I prefer not to share the host's network stack with home assistant's container (more complicated network setup and additional netfilter rules required for isolation).

Sadly, docker run --network host even requires --userns host:

docker: Error response from daemon: cannot share the host's network namespace when user namespaces are enabled.

The official home assistant image runs as root. This imposes an unnecessary security risk, especially when disabling user namespace remapping (--userns host).

Setup

# https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/mqtt/broker/#configuration-variables
mqtt:
  broker: BROKER_HOSTNAME_OR_IP_ADDRESS
  # credentials, additional options…

# https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/switch.mqtt/#configuration-variables
switch:
- platform: mqtt
  name: switchbot_button
  command_topic: homeassistant/switch/switchbot/aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff/set
  state_topic: homeassistant/switch/switchbot/aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff/state
  # http://materialdesignicons.com/
  icon: mdi:light-switch

cover:
- platform: mqtt
  name: switchbot_curtains
  command_topic: homeassistant/cover/switchbot-curtain/11:22:33:44:55:66/set
  set_position_topic: homeassistant/cover/switchbot-curtain/aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff/position/set-percent
  state_topic: homeassistant/cover/switchbot-curtain/11:22:33:44:55:66/state

Docker 🐳

Pre-built docker images are available at https://hub.docker.com/r/fphammerle/switchbot-mqtt/tags

Annotation of signed tags docker/* contains docker image digests: https://github.com/fphammerle/switchbot-mqtt/tags

$ docker build -t switchbot-mqtt .
$ docker run --name spelunca_switchbot \
    --userns host \
    -v /var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket:/var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket \
    switchbot-mqtt:latest \
    switchbot-mqtt --mqtt-host HOSTNAME_OR_IP_ADDRESS

Alternatively, you can use docker-compose:

version: '3.8'

services:
  switchbot-mqtt:
    image: switchbot-mqtt
    container_name: switchbot-mqtt
    userns_mode: host
    environment:
    - MQTT_HOST=localhost
    - MQTT_PORT=1883
    #- MQTT_USERNAME=username
    #- MQTT_PASSWORD=password
    #- FETCH_DEVICE_INFO=yes
    volumes:
    - /var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket:/var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket
    restart: unless-stopped

Alternatives

• https://github.com/binsentsu/switchbot-ctrl
• https://github.com/OpenWonderLabs/python-host/blob/master/switchbot_py3.py
• https://gist.github.com/aerialist/163a5794e95ccd28dc023161324009ed
• https://gist.github.com/mugifly/a29f34df7de8960d72245fcb124513c7