Fine tuning setup & questions

[Bruskey]

Hi

I have started to delve into setting up room assistant in my house, and currently have it setup on 3 different raspberry pi's. I have a very basic setup trying to use BLE to track my android phone running the HA companion app. After looking around various forums and videos, i am still confused around some of the settings and features which may be the reason why i am having so many issues making my system stable. My config for all 3 pi's is below. I'm constantly seeing my device jumping between the rooms even though its sitting stationary right next to a pi and the other one is a considerable distance away. I also dont seem to find much information at all about clusters apart from setting them up. What is the purpose of the cluster leader? I dont understand how they work. When i click on each of my Pi's in Home Assistant on the MQTT devices screen each device is showing a different cluster leader? Also, is the MaxDistance a reliable feature? I have my phone literally sitting on top of my Pi and its saying 4.8 which i assume is metres? In saying that, what is the best way to fine tune everything to avoid seeing these issues as there doesnt seem to be much information i can find about that either. What settings should i be looking to add / adjust?

global:
  instanceName: Office
  integrations:
    - homeAssistant
    - bluetoothLowEnergy
cluster:
  port: 6425
  peerAddresses:
    - 192.168.1.56:6425
    - 192.168.1.71:6425
    - 192.168.1.72:6425
homeAssistant:
  mqttUrl: 'mqtt://192.168.1.100:1883'
  mqttOptions:
    username: xxxxxxxxx
    password: xxxxxxxxx
bluetoothLowEnergy:
  timeout: 15
  maxDistance: 12
  allowlist:
    - xxxx-100-1
  updateFrequency: 0
  tagOverrides:
    xxxx-100-1:
      name: Andrew Pixel 4a

Thanks in advance for any information that can help me
Andrew

[worm5406]

I set mine up yesterday and I am having the same problem. I was going to post basically the same question.

Following along to see this and fine-tune my setup.

Thanks for posting!!

[Bruskey]

Anyone? I am finding it quite frustrating at the lack of information on here around how to configure everything. Yes the instructions to install it are quite good with a stock standard config that does nothing, but apart from that its pretty lacking. Surely anyone out there that has got it properly working is able to provide some basic tips or advise on how to set it up outside of a basic config?

[worm5406]

I agree. I know it is more of a play and figure it out yourself. I just wish I had a nudge.

As an example a problem I have had just this whole past week:

After bringing up two nodes (the third bring a pain) my wifi has freaked out. Devices drop and so do the nodes.

I have now restarted everything in my house (switches wifi devices hub HA RA and TV) just to see what is causing a storm or lack of communication. No extra traffic was seen or noted. Good wifi between all and I even found a few that were connected to the wrong side of the house.

[worm5406]

ok @Bruskey let's make a small change to your config file:

Under Cluster add

weight: ##

Like:

weight: 20

On the one, you want to always be a leader set a higher number.
On my Kitchen one, I set the weight on that one to 10. On the Downstairs office, I set it to 20

[Bruskey]

Thanks

Do you know what the purpose of the cluster leader is? What does it do differently to other devices in the cluster? That's the part I can't find any documentation about.

[worm5406]

Sorry for the late reply. Someone has to lead. You have a cluster (mine now has 3) and it needs a leader to coordinate.

I need to look and refind the "reboot on hang" node red or how ever I saw it running.

I need to find and figure out "distance" too.

[bachoo786]

Guys I find espresence quick in detecting when you enter a room. However the down side is that its hard to tune it i.e. define the distance and getting it precise.

[worm5406]

I have not looked personally but this is what I was directed to a while ago:

https://espresense.com/beacons/apps

[bachoo786]

Nope you download the software on your ESPresense which is very simple to do and you can use the HA companion app that transmits BLE signals to set your device up.

[worm5406]

So I download it to my watch / son device / wife device / dog's collar(key tag) and also to the car?? We wont talk about the cat.

[bachoo786]

Nope you download the actual software I.e. like room assistant you need to download it to your raspberry pi. This is similar where you download the ESPresense software on a esp32 device which is a micro controller.

[worm5406]

I get that. The link I sent was from espresense site.

What app are you talking about?

This thread is about RoomAssistance though.

Back to the subject at hand.