Home Assistant PC usage detection

What is this?

This is a super simple script that monitors if you are using your PC (either touching keyboard or mouse), and reports this to Home Assistant

It uses HTTP binary sensor

How to use it?

1. Download it: git clone https://github.com/TheLastGimbus/hass-pc-usage-detection/ - or just press "download zip" button above
2. Get your Home Assistant long-lived access token
3. (Optional, but very recomended) Set up SSH tunnel to your Home Assistant
4. pip3 install -r requirements.txt
5. python3 main.py --url "http://<home_assistant_ip>:<port>/api/states/binary_sensor.<binary_sensor_name>" --token <HASS_LONG_LIVE_TOKEN> --keyboard --mouse

You need to specify --keyboard and --mouse flags to detect keeb/mouse activity

Default time of no-activity after PC is unused is 3 minutes. You can specify this with --time <seconds>

Example setup:

If you are actually going to rely on this, I recommend you few things from my setup:

• make external template binary sensor that will also check if your PC is even reachable:

binary_sensor:
 - platform: ping
   name: Ping PC
   host: 192.168.1.101  # You need to set yourself static IP address
 - platform: template
   sensors:
     pc_active:
       friendly_name: "PC active"
       value_template: >-
         {{ is_state('binary_sensor.pc_is_touched_script', 'on')
            and is_state('binary_sensor.ping_pc', 'on') }}

Now, you can safely use binary_sensor.pc_active in your automations!

• make startup script and add it to your autostart: This is what I use on Ubuntu - replace matiii@192.168.1.242 with your server user@address:

#!/bin/bash

# I run SSH tunnel and script separatly in screen, so I can manage and restart them whenever I want

# Set up SSH tunnel
# This loops it, so it always tries to re-connect after 10 seconds if something fails
screen -S "hass-ssh-tunnel" -dm bash -c '\
  while true; do
  ssh -L 9876:192.168.1.242:8123 -N -T matiii@192.168.1.242 ;
  sleep 10 ;
  echo "Disconnected, trying to re-connect..." ;
  done;
'
screen -S "hass-python-presence-detector" -dm bash -c '\
  MY_SCRIPT_PATH="/PATH/TO/SCRIPT/FOLDER" ; \
  # This is to activate Python virtual enviroment, very recommended, but you can skip it \
  source "$MY_SCRIPT_PATH/venv/bin/activate" ; \
  python3 "$MY_SCRIPT_PATH/main.py" \
      --url "http://localhost:9876/api/states/binary_sensor.pc_is_touched_script" \
      --time 60 \
      --token "HOME_ASSISTANT_LONG_LIVED_TOKEN" \
      --keyboard \
      --mouse \
'

If you don't know what screen and venv is, here is simplified version:

#!/bin/bash
# Set up SSH tunnel
# The '&' makes it run in the background
ssh -L 9876:192.168.1.242:8123 -N -T matiii@192.168.1.242 &
MY_SCRIPT_PATH="/PATH/TO/SCRIPT/FOLDER"
python3 "$MY_SCRIPT_PATH/main.py" \
    --url "http://localhost:9876/api/states/binary_sensor.pc_is_touched_script" \
    --time 60 \
    --token "HOME_ASSISTANT_LONG_LIVED_TOKEN" \
    --keyboard \
    --mouse

Of course, this will look a little different on Windows 🙅

Now, place this in your autostart and you should be good to go

SSH tunnel?

If you are running Home Assistant on your local network, and connecting to your local address (something like 192.168.x.x) with standard HTTP (without S) - anyone sniffing your WiFi could get your access token - that gives almost full access to all your home!

To protect against it, you can set up SSH tunnel that encrypts all traffic and ensures that you are connected to your server, and not the potential attacker

1. Set up SSH on your server and SSH keys on your computer (it's easy, Google how to do that if you don't have it already)
2. Type into terminal/cmd: ssh -L 9876:<home_assistant_ip>:8123 -N -T <user>@<home_assistant_ip>

9876 (you can change this) is port that will open on your client (your pc), and 8123 (default HASS port) is port that will be directed to on your server

You can open the browser and type in localhost:9876 to see for yourself!