Smart Home Sensor Guide

action.devices.types.SENSOR - A single sensor can serve multiple functions, such as monitoring both temperature and humidity. Sensors may report either or both quantitative—for example, carbon monoxide and smoke level measured at parts per million—and qualitative measurements (such as whether air quality is healthy or unhealthy).

This type indicates that the device gets the Sensor icon and some related synonyms and aliases.

Device capabilities

Refer to the corresponding trait documentation for implementation details, such as attributes and states that your service should support, and how to build EXECUTE and QUERY responses.

These traits are recommended, if applicable to your device. However, you are free to mix and match from all available traits to best match your existing product functionality.

Sensors may also use other traits covering data they can report, such as:

Quality requirements

  • Latency: must be less than or equal to 1000ms.
  • Reliability: must be more than or equal to 97%.

Example device: Simple sensor

This section contains example intent payloads representing a common "Sensor" based on the device type and traits above. If you add or remove traits in your implementation, modify your responses accordingly to reflect those changes.

Sample SYNC response

Request
{
  "requestId": "6894439706274654512",
  "inputs": [
    {
      "intent": "action.devices.SYNC"
    }
  ]
}
Response
{
  "requestId": "6894439706274654512",
  "payload": {
    "agentUserId": "user123",
    "devices": [
      {
        "id": "123",
        "type": "action.devices.types.SENSOR",
        "traits": [
          "action.devices.traits.EnergyStorage",
          "action.devices.traits.OccupancySensing",
          "action.devices.traits.SensorState"
        ],
        "name": {
          "name": "Simple sensor"
        },
        "willReportState": true,
        "attributes": {
          "sensorStatesSupported": [
            {
              "name": "AirQuality",
              "descriptiveCapabilities": {
                "availableStates": [
                  "healthy",
                  "moderate",
                  "unhealthy",
                  "very unhealthy"
                ]
              }
            }
          ],
          "queryOnlyEnergyStorage": true,
          "occupancySensorConfiguration": [
            {
              "occupancySensorType": "PIR",
              "occupiedToUnoccupiedDelaySec": 10,
              "unoccupiedToOccupiedDelaySec": 10,
              "unoccupiedToOccupiedEventThreshold": 2
            }
          ]
        },
        "deviceInfo": {
          "manufacturer": "smart-home-inc",
          "model": "hs1234",
          "hwVersion": "3.2",
          "swVersion": "11.4"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

Sample QUERY response

Request
{
  "requestId": "6894439706274654514",
  "inputs": [
    {
      "intent": "action.devices.QUERY",
      "payload": {
        "devices": [
          {
            "id": "123"
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}
Response
{
  "requestId": "6894439706274654514",
  "payload": {
    "devices": {
      "123": {
        "status": "SUCCESS",
        "online": true,
        "currentSensorStateData": [
          {
            "name": "AirQuality",
            "currentSensorState": "healthy"
          }
        ],
        "descriptiveCapacityRemaining": "HIGH",
        "capacityRemaining": [
          {
            "unit": "PERCENTAGE",
            "rawValue": 90
          }
        ],
        "occupancy": "OCCUPIED"
      }
    }
  }
}

Device ERRORS

See the full list of errors and exceptions.