08-13-2025, 10:23 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-13-2025, 12:46 PM by Majik.
Edit Reason: typos
)
I'm documenting this because, during the installation, I came across a couple of minor issues, and this may be helpful for other people.
The background to this:
I've had a HAOS (Home Assistant Operating System) install running on a Linux VM for a little while with a number of integrations already.
I have a UCM/Pi running the standard UCMPI_OS install, and was, originally, considering installing HA on that, but the documented way to do that is using the Docker image, which has restrictions (no addons) which make it a deal-breaker.
I also looked at the options for modifying UCMPI_OS to run HA directly, perhaps extracting the Cytech Node Red components and running these within Node Red installed as an add-on within HA, but that looked too complex. Also, the UCM/PI connects to Comfort with a local serial interface, and Comfort2MQTT expects a network port.
So, whilst I'm hopeful there may be a future UCM/PI setup that is nicely bundled with HA, I abandoned that for the time being.
So I decided to install onto my existing HAOS system which, I suspect for some existing HA users, may be something they want to do. I don't know how different the standard Linux HAOS is from the Raspberry Pi version, but these are some notes.
Firstly, I hit a minor problem with the broker credentials. The instructions say:
That's cool, but the instructions seem to provide no information about needing to configure the Mosquitto Broker with those credentials, so I ended up with Comfort2MQTT not being able to connect to the broker (errors in the logs).
After a bit of scrabbling around (as the Mosquitto Broker docs aren't that helpful on the subject) I worked out how to configure this:
The format isn't clear from the docs, but it's this:
After this, it all connected fine. However, I couldn't work out how to upload my cclx file, as the file editor didn't show the addon_configs directory. It appears that, on my installation, the File Editor add-on is restricted to the /root/homeassistant directory, and the addon_configs directory is one level higher than that.
So, in the end I had to use the Terminal & SSH add-on (which I already had installed) and used sftp to upload the CCLX.
Later on, I realised there's a configuration option in the File Editor add-on "Enforce Basepath" which (as per the docs) "If set to `true`, access is limited to files within the `/config` directory.". Unsetting this allows me to navigate to the addon_config directory.
Then I moved onto the configuration.yaml. This is what I configured:
This is nearly an exact copy of the configuration from the instructions, but I found the inline instructions a bit difficult to use as it included additional escape characters which I had to edit out, and copying/pasting it into the file editor messed up the formatting, which needed correction. I'm hoping that using the code block here makes the formatting easier to read and more reliable for copy/pasting.
@slychiu would it be possible to update the instructions to use the code block for better formatting of the configuration.yaml items?
The item "arm_vacation" seems to be commented out, and I'm not clear why.
Then I moved onto adding zones. Again, following the instructions, I added this to my configuration.yaml:
(Again, mainly posting these for a copy/paste reference)
After a reload, these zones show up in the entities under the MQTT Integration, and under "Binary sensor" in the Overview Dashboard. To reload, I selected "Manually configured MQTT entities" on the Developer tools page.
An interesting point was, I configured one of the binary sensors incorrectly (due to escape chars in the cut/paste) and, after I corrected it, HA still had the original entity as well as the corrected one. I had to manually delete the entity. Maybe a full restart of HA would have cleared this as well, but be aware that this might occur.
That is my adventure to date, and I hope some of this is useful to others. If I come across any other "gotchas" or points of note, I will update.
Cheers,
Keith
The background to this:
I've had a HAOS (Home Assistant Operating System) install running on a Linux VM for a little while with a number of integrations already.
I have a UCM/Pi running the standard UCMPI_OS install, and was, originally, considering installing HA on that, but the documented way to do that is using the Docker image, which has restrictions (no addons) which make it a deal-breaker.
I also looked at the options for modifying UCMPI_OS to run HA directly, perhaps extracting the Cytech Node Red components and running these within Node Red installed as an add-on within HA, but that looked too complex. Also, the UCM/PI connects to Comfort with a local serial interface, and Comfort2MQTT expects a network port.
So, whilst I'm hopeful there may be a future UCM/PI setup that is nicely bundled with HA, I abandoned that for the time being.
So I decided to install onto my existing HAOS system which, I suspect for some existing HA users, may be something they want to do. I don't know how different the standard Linux HAOS is from the Raspberry Pi version, but these are some notes.
Firstly, I hit a minor problem with the broker credentials. The instructions say:
slychiu Wrote: Press the Configuration Tab on top to go to the Options. Enter an MQTT Borker User and password that you choose.
That's cool, but the instructions seem to provide no information about needing to configure the Mosquitto Broker with those credentials, so I ended up with Comfort2MQTT not being able to connect to the broker (errors in the logs).
After a bit of scrabbling around (as the Mosquitto Broker docs aren't that helpful on the subject) I worked out how to configure this:
The format isn't clear from the docs, but it's this:
Code:
- username: <username>
password: <password>After this, it all connected fine. However, I couldn't work out how to upload my cclx file, as the file editor didn't show the addon_configs directory. It appears that, on my installation, the File Editor add-on is restricted to the /root/homeassistant directory, and the addon_configs directory is one level higher than that.
So, in the end I had to use the Terminal & SSH add-on (which I already had installed) and used sftp to upload the CCLX.
Later on, I realised there's a configuration option in the File Editor add-on "Enforce Basepath" which (as per the docs) "If set to `true`, access is limited to files within the `/config` directory.". Unsetting this allows me to navigate to the addon_config directory.
Then I moved onto the configuration.yaml. This is what I configured:
Code:
mqtt:
alarm_control_panel:
- name: Comfort Alarm
unique_id: "comfort2_alarm_0fee8e" # E.G. Use last six digits of UCM/Eth03 MAC address to make it unique
code_arm_required: false
qos: 2
supported_features:
- arm_home
- arm_away
- arm_night
# - arm_vacation
- arm_custom_bypass
state_topic: "comfort2mqtt/alarm"
command_topic: "comfort2mqtt/alarm/set"
availability_topic: "comfort2mqtt/alarm/online"
payload_available: 1
payload_not_available: 0
code: "1234" # onscreen keypad Code can be different from Comfort\'s.
# This code is for the onscreen Keypad to Disarm, while the Comfort code in Comfort2MQTT
# configuration is to login to Comfort itself.
# This onscreen keypad code is used in the alarm Keypad to disarm Comfort. It is not the
# Comfort user code, although both can be set to the same code. When you enter the
# onscreen keypad code in the alarm Keypad to disarm, Comfort2MTT will disarm the
# security by using the saved user code.
# Secrets can be used EG. "code: !secret comfort_pin
sensor:
- name: Alarm Mode
unique_id: "comfort2_alarm_mode"
availability_topic: "comfort2mqtt/alarm/online"
state_topic: "comfort2mqtt/alarm"
payload_available: "1"
payload_not_available: "0"
- name: Alarm Message
unique_id: "comfort2_alarm_message"
state_topic: "comfort2mqtt/alarm/message"
availability_topic: "comfort2mqtt/alarm/online"
payload_available: "1"
payload_not_available: "0"This is nearly an exact copy of the configuration from the instructions, but I found the inline instructions a bit difficult to use as it included additional escape characters which I had to edit out, and copying/pasting it into the file editor messed up the formatting, which needed correction. I'm hoping that using the code block here makes the formatting easier to read and more reliable for copy/pasting.
@slychiu would it be possible to update the instructions to use the code block for better formatting of the configuration.yaml items?
The item "arm_vacation" seems to be commented out, and I'm not clear why.
Then I moved onto adding zones. Again, following the instructions, I added this to my configuration.yaml:
Code:
binary_sensor:
- name: Front Door
unique_id: "comfort2_input1"
state_topic: "comfort2mqtt/input1"
availability_topic: "comfort2mqtt/alarm/online"
value_template: '{{ value_json.State }}'
json_attributes_topic: "comfort2mqtt/input1"
json_attributes_template: '{{ value_json | tojson }}'
payload_on: "1"
payload_off: "0"
payload_available: "1"
payload_not_available: "0"
device_class: door
- name: Hall PIR
unique_id: \"comfort2_input2\"
state_topic: \"comfort2mqtt/input2\"
availability_topic: \"comfort2mqtt/alarm/online\"
value_template: \'{{ value_json.State }}\'
json_attributes_topic: \"comfort2mqtt/input2\"
json_attributes_template: \'{{ value_json | tojson }}\'
payload_on: \"1\"
payload_off: \"0\"
payload_available: \"1\"
payload_not_available: \"0\"
device_class: motion(Again, mainly posting these for a copy/paste reference)
After a reload, these zones show up in the entities under the MQTT Integration, and under "Binary sensor" in the Overview Dashboard. To reload, I selected "Manually configured MQTT entities" on the Developer tools page.
An interesting point was, I configured one of the binary sensors incorrectly (due to escape chars in the cut/paste) and, after I corrected it, HA still had the original entity as well as the corrected one. I had to manually delete the entity. Maybe a full restart of HA would have cleared this as well, but be aware that this might occur.
That is my adventure to date, and I hope some of this is useful to others. If I come across any other "gotchas" or points of note, I will update.
Cheers,
Keith
