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Integrations Contributing

Home Assistant

WiCAN PRO pushes its vehicle data straight into Home Assistant: one entity per parameter, a location tracker from GPS, and diagnostic sensors for the device itself. No MQTT broker is needed. The WiCAN integration finds the device on your network and registers itself; from then on WiCAN sends.

How it works

  1. The WiCAN integration in Home Assistant discovers the device on the local network (it advertises itself as _wican._tcp), or you give it the address.
  2. The integration registers its webhook on the device. The device remembers it across restarts.
  3. Every few seconds WiCAN posts what changed: its status, the vehicle parameters, the parameter configuration, and the GPS fix when an accessory provides one. Home Assistant creates and updates the entities from that.

Because WiCAN sends, Home Assistant never has to poll a device that may be asleep in a parked car, and a device away from home can still deliver over a VPN.

Before you start

  • WiCAN on the same network as Home Assistant, set up with Quick Setup. On the How will you use WiCAN step choose Home Assistant: nothing to type there.
  • AutoPID switched on with at least one parameter (Quick Setup's vehicle step does this).
  • HACS installed in Home Assistant.

The Home Assistant step of Quick Setup

Quick Setup's Home Assistant step: the integration registers WiCAN after the restart; nothing to type.

Install the integration

  1. Add the WiCAN integration in HACS

    Open HACS, search for WiCAN and download it. If your HACS does not list it, add the custom repository https://github.com/jay-oswald/ha-wican of type Integration first.

  2. Restart Home Assistant

  3. Add the device

    Go to Settings › Devices & services. A discovered WiCAN shows up at the top: tap Configure. Otherwise Add integration, search for WiCAN, and enter the device's address: wican_<device id>.local (the device id is the twelve characters after WiCAN_ in the access point name) or its IP address. Repeat for every WiCAN you own.

  4. Set the push interval

    On the integration's card, Configure sets the Post Interval: how often WiCAN pushes, 15 seconds by default.

What you get

Entities Source
One sensor per AutoPID parameter, with the unit and the name from the Parameters page the vehicle data
Diagnostic sensors: sleep mode, CAN protocol, ECU PID count, AutoPID loop the device status
A device tracker with the car's position a GPS fix from an ESPNetLink or a USB GPS receiver
An update entity with the running firmware version the device identity

Entities keep their last values while the car is away or asleep: the integration caches a snapshot, and such values carry the attribute wican_data_stale: true plus last_successful_update, so a dashboard can show that the data is old instead of going empty.

Changing things later

  • Units and names come from WiCAN: change them on Automate › Parameters, not in Home Assistant.
  • After changing the car configuration (new parameters, a profile), reload the integration. Entities for parameters that no longer exist stay until you delete them, or delete the device and add it again.
  • Push interval, data mode, compression are on the device under Automate › Home Assistant: changed mode (the default) sends only values that changed; full sends everything every cycle; gzip compresses the posts for a cellular uplink.
  • Away from home: with a VPN configured on WiCAN, its VPN address is included in every push and Home Assistant uses it when the home address is unreachable. A second webhook address (for example a Nabu Casa remote URL) can be set as a failover under the same page.

Troubleshooting

Symptom Likely cause What to do
The device cannot be added WiCAN is asleep or not reachable from Home Assistant open WiCAN's page in a browser first; wake the car if Power Saving put it to sleep
Every entity reads Unavailable after a Home Assistant restart Home Assistant restarted while WiCAN was away once WiCAN is reachable, reload the integration
Values stop although the car is on the webhook was rejected or paused Automate › Home Assistant shows the last error and the success and failure counts; Devices & services shows the integration's state. Removing and re-adding the device registers the webhook afresh
Entities missing after a firmware update or profile change the entity list follows the parameter configuration reload the integration, or remove and re-add the device

The device side of the contract (/api/webhook and the push payload) is on Data paths and automation in the API reference.