Receiver Entities

Each receiver exposes diagnostic entities on the receiver device so you can observe the rtl_433 server itself.

Connectivity

The Connectivity binary sensor is on while the receiver's WebSocket connection is open and off otherwise. It flips off immediately when the server announces a shutdown instead of waiting for a silence timeout.

SDR and Meta Diagnostics

Read-only diagnostic sensors report the radio's current configuration:

• Center frequency.
• Sample rate.
• Conversion mode.
• Hop interval.
• Gain, where an empty value reads as auto.
• Frequency correction in ppm.

The configured frequencies and hop_times arrays appear as attributes on the center-frequency sensor.

Radio Noise

Two diagnostic sensors track the radio's noise floor, so you can graph RF noise over time and alert when it climbs high enough to drown out your devices:

• Noise level — the radio's estimated noise level in dB.
• Minimum detection level — the auto-adjusted pulse-detection threshold in dB; transmissions weaker than this are not decoded.

rtl_433 only reports these when its auto-level feature is active, so run the server with -Y autolevel and optionally -M noise:30 (a periodic report every 30 seconds). The config-file equivalents are:

pulse_detect autolevel
report_meta noise:30

With the Home Assistant add-on, put those two lines in the radio's optional per-radio override file in the add-on config directory (see the add-on documentation). Without them the sensors stay unknown. autolevel continuously adjusts the pulse detector's minimum level to the measured noise floor, which changes reception behavior.

The two sensors update on different schedules. -M noise:30 updates Noise level every 30 seconds. Minimum detection level updates only when autolevel adjusts the threshold. This happens when the estimated noise sits more than 3 dB below the configured minlevel (default -12.1 dB, so roughly below -15 dB) and the new threshold differs from the current one by more than 1 dB. As a result:

• On a radio whose noise floor is above about -15 dB, autolevel never engages and Minimum detection level stays unknown however long you wait. Check Noise level first: it decides whether the threshold can move at all.
• rtl_433 adjusts the threshold several times at startup, then stops once it stabilizes. The event stream carries no backlog, so a server that settled before Home Assistant connected leaves the sensor unknown until the noise floor drifts by more than 1 dB. To force an update, nudge the receiver's Gain number entity far enough to move the floor, then set it back.

rtl_433 can send these readings several times a second: the estimate jitters by a dB or so, and every move of more than 1 dB produces a new line. Writing each one would flood the recorder, so the integration collects them and updates both sensors at most once a minute. Each shows the average over that minute, with every reading weighted by how long it was in effect, which is the steadier figure for spotting a noise floor that creeps up. A value that held for 50 seconds counts five times as much as one that lasted 10, however many lines reported either. The first reading after Home Assistant connects is shown straight away.

Unlike the sensors below, this data arrives over the event stream itself (rtl_433 ≥ 23.11), so it works even when /cmd is proxied away behind a WebSocket-only proxy.

That capture is from a server reachable only over its WebSocket stream, which is why the two noise sensors report while the /cmd-sourced sensors described below read unknown.

Server Statistics

Server statistics include cumulative decoded events, OOK frames, FSK frames, and enabled decoders. Per-protocol stats[] and the since timestamp appear as attributes on the decoded-events sensor.

Receiver configuration and statistics are fetched over HTTP from the rtl_433 server's /cmd endpoint at the server root, http(s)://host:port/cmd, independent of the configured WebSocket path. If a reverse proxy exposes only the WebSocket path and not /cmd, these sensors read unknown while the event stream and connectivity sensor keep working.

The diagnostic and statistics sensors become unavailable when the receiver connection drops. See Availability. The Connectivity sensor stays available to report the connection state, and the SDR controls below stay available so you can change settings while disconnected.

Managing SDR Settings from Home Assistant

By default a new receiver adopts and manages the radio's SDR settings. With Manage rtl_433 settings from Home Assistant enabled, the receiver exposes controls under the receiver device in the config entity category:

• Center frequency number in MHz, available only for single-frequency setups.
• Sample rate number in Hz.
• Frequency correction number in ppm.
• Gain number in dB paired with an Auto gain switch.
• Conversion mode select with native, si, and customary.
• Hop interval number in seconds, available only for multi-frequency hopping setups.

Frequency hopping must be configured in rtl_433. Home Assistant can adjust the hop interval after rtl_433 is already running with multiple frequencies, but it does not provide an entity for editing the frequency list.

On first connect, Home Assistant adopts the server's current settings into its desired state. It then re-applies managed settings on every reconnect so values survive rtl_433 restarts. If an initial frequency was configured during setup, that value is applied once and takes priority over the adopted frequency.

Once managed, change these settings in Home Assistant rather than editing the rtl_433 config directly. Home Assistant is the authority and will re-apply its stored values on the next reconnect.

Re-Syncing from rtl_433 Config

To pick up direct rtl_433 config edits:

1. Turn Manage rtl_433 settings from Home Assistant off. This clears Home Assistant's stored desired state.
2. Restart rtl_433 so it loads its config.
3. Turn the toggle back on. On the next connect, Home Assistant re-adopts the server's current settings.

Requirements and Caveats

• The /cmd endpoint must be reachable at the server root.
• Hopping setups keep center frequency unmanaged so Home Assistant never pins a radio to one frequency.
• The frequency list itself can only be set in the rtl_433 config.
• Multi-stage gain strings are not supported by the single gain control.
• Retuning does not widen the sample rate automatically; high-frequency bands may require manually increasing sample rate.

Turning management off removes the controls, stops Home Assistant from sending commands, and clears its stored desired state. The radio's settings are left untouched.