Two or more companions

To add a second companion, add the integration again. See Installation.

• The public key of the companion identifies the entry. The same companion cannot have two entries ("Device is already configured").
• Each entry has its own connection, settings, tracked nodes, MQTT brokers, discovered contacts and CLI Console.
• Each entry has its own traffic policy budget. Two companions in the same area add two budgets of traffic to the mesh. See Mesh Traffic Policy.

To find the entry_id and the device_id, see Services: Select the entry.

Entity IDs

When two entries make the same ID, Home Assistant adds a suffix such as _2 to the second one. The registry then keeps that ID.

Entities	ID contains	Suffix _2 possible
Companion, message, radio fault and MQTT broker sensors, companion telemetry sensors and GPS tracker, CLI Console, CLI buttons	The companion prefix <pk6>	No
Select and text helpers, for example select.meshcore_channel	No prefix	Yes, always for the second entry
Companion telemetry sensors and GPS tracker from an earlier version	No prefix	Yes, when both companions send them
Tracked node sensors, Online, neighbor sensors, firmware buttons	The node prefix <pk10>	Yes, when both entries track the same node
Telemetry sensors and GPS trackers of other nodes	The node prefix <pk10>	Yes, when both entries receive the same node
Contact sensors	The contact name and <pk12>	Yes, when both companions know the same contact

Services

With two or more entries, set entry_id on every service call. Without it, the services select an entry as the table shows. For all rules, see Services: Select the entry.

Services	Without entry_id
send_ui_message, execute_command_ui	Fail with ambiguous_config_entry
send_message, send_channel_message, execute_command	The first loaded entry that is connected. If no entry is connected, the first loaded entry.
get_contacts, get_discovered_contact, get_channels, trace	The first loaded entry
cleanup_unavailable_contacts, cli_console_clear	All entries
add_selected_contact, remove_selected_contact	Fail with ambiguous_config_entry
remove_discovered_contact	With pubkey_prefix: the first loaded entry. Without it: fail with ambiguous_config_entry.
clear_discovered_contacts	The first loaded entry

Events

Every meshcore_* event has entry_id and device_id. Filter each event trigger on one of them. Otherwise, the automation runs for the events of all companions.

triggers:
  - trigger: event
    event_type: meshcore_message
    event_data:
      entry_id: YOUR_ENTRY_ID

• device_id is null until the integration registers the companion device. entry_id does not have this problem.
• On meshcore_cli_response, entry_id is the entry that the call named, or null. Filter on resolved_entry_id or device_id.

Dashboards

Make one dashboard view for each companion.

1. Copy a dashboard from Dashboard cards or Basic Node.
2. Replace the entity IDs with those of the second entry, for example select.meshcore_channel_2.
3. Add entry_id to each card action that calls a UI or contact service:

tap_action:
  action: perform-action
  perform_action: meshcore.send_ui_message
  data:
    entry_id: YOUR_ENTRY_ID

See Dashboard cards: Two or more entries.