Add icons for binary_sensors

[felipecrs]

All binary sensors currently don't have an icon set. I think we should leverage our existing icons set to binary_sensor as well.

What do you guys think?

[felipecrs]

The caveat is that there will be no more state-based icons, like motion on or motion off. But I think this is worth the price.

[NickM-27]

I'm not sure if I'm onboard, users can easily change the icon to what they want if it's better to be more clear and the automatic icon is not important.

If the automatic icon is disabled then for a user who wants that behavior, it would be practically impossible besides creating a separate template entity to do the same thing.

[felipecrs]

I understand, and I think your concern is legit. The best to address this would be to have a feature in HA that would allow the user to "unset" an icon provided by the integration.

Have in mind some things though:

• We are already overriding the icon for sensors, so if we go for consistency, we should either remove them from sensors or add them to binary_sensors.
• It's not practical for the user to set custom icons for all the supported entities. In my instance, I have 76 of them that I would have to tweak manually:

So, if the goal is to allow the user to keep the original icons (which will have state-based icons), I suggest the following:

• To add a new option in the integration configuration called Set custom icons for object entities, that would cause all sensors and binary_sensors to have custom icons set by the integration. The user could toggle it as they wish.

But personally, I would not advocate for it because I think the custom icons are better than one icon for all entities (which are state-based). That's because:

• Custom icons helps a lot to find entities when searching for them
• And binary_sensors already are colored according to their state, which is, IMO, more than good enough to replace "state-based" icons functionality:

chrome_sX18s4uznH.mp4

[NickM-27]

We are already overriding the icon for sensors, so if we go for consistency, we should either remove them from sensors or add them to binary_sensors.

Sensors don't have a switching behavior or a default icon so I think it is a different case.

Custom icons helps a lot to find entities when searching for them
And binary_sensors already are colored according to their state, which is, IMO, more than good enough to replace "state-based" icons functionality:

I mean sure, I don't necessarily disagree for my own usage, but with the number of posts I see on Reddit and other places asking how to do switching icons based on state I don't think it's easy to dismiss it so quickly based on color being satisfactory personally.

When the inevitable user comes and asks how to make the icons change based on state like their ONVIF integration (just a hypothetical example) I don't feel telling them to make a template entity is a great answer nor do I want to support them as they try templates.

All that being said, it has occurred to me that as an integration we can still easily provide custom binary sensor icons by providing the icon as a property and setting it based on the current entity state.

[felipecrs]

Sensors don't have a switching behavior or a default icon so I think it is a different case.

Got it. Makes sense.

I mean sure, I don't necessarily disagree for my own usage, but with the number of posts I see on Reddit and other places asking how to do switching icons based on state I don't think it's easy to dismiss it so quickly based on color being satisfactory personally.

Got it, I never stumbled upon this.

I mean sure, I don't necessarily disagree for my own usage, but with the number of posts I see on Reddit and other places asking how to do switching icons based on state I don't think it's easy to dismiss it so quickly based on color being satisfactory personally.

When the inevitable user comes and asks how to make the icons change based on state like their ONVIF integration (just a hypothetical example) I don't feel telling them to make a template entity is a great answer nor do I want to support them as they try templates.

I guess you should consider my suggestion of adding it as per the integration configuration then if you care about this situation.

All that being said, it has occurred to me that as an integration we can still easily provide custom binary sensor icons by providing the icon as a property and setting it based on the current entity state.

I did not understand how this would help...

[NickM-27]

I did not understand how this would help...

Right now the icon for every "presence" entity is a house with an outlined one being off and filled in one being on

You could instead do

    @property
    def icon(self) -> str:
        """Return the icon of the sensor."""
       if self._is_on:
         return ICON_PERSON

       return ICON_PERSON_MISSING

this way the binary sensors still have the state based icon and the icons can be more relevant like you are hoping to achieve here

[felipecrs]

Oh yeah. Got it. Unfortunately, only a few icons provide meaningful variant to be able to leverage it. Still, we could do such a thing for the ones that we can, like "Person", "Car", "Dog". We could also request new icons (like horse-off, cat-off) for the ones missing, and add them in a later version once they get added to MDI.

[felipecrs]

So, amazing, I totally agree, it's a great idea!

[dermotduffy]

Sounds like a good compromise to me. Where there's a good on/off variant pair, we use that -- otherwise we use the default (still allows a user to customize them to something different, non-state related, if they so choose).

[felipecrs]

I think this can be closed, right?

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.