Integrate HP printers into Home Assistant - fill levels & more

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

Have you ever realized in the middle of a print job that the toner is empty or the ink cartridge has failed? Preferably just when you need it most. Thanks to Home Assistant and HP printer integration, you can put this problem behind you once and for all. In this article, I'll show you how to connect your HP printer to Home Assistant and the benefits of this integration.

For detailed instructions and an explanation of all configuration options, I recommend the YouTube video linked below. In this video, every single setting is explained in detail so that you receive comprehensive instructions for the exact setup. You can find any code from the video in this article so that you can use it directly without having to type it in.

Why should you integrate your HP printer with Home Assistant?

The integration of HP printers in Home Assistant offers you practical features that make your everyday life easier. Imagine receiving automatic notifications when your toner or ink cartridge is running low. You no longer have to think about it yourself or suddenly get annoyed because your printer isn't working just when you urgently need it.

The most important advantages at a glance:

• Automatic status monitoring: Home Assistant informs you about the status of your printer, including the ink or toner levels.
• Early notifications: You will receive warnings before you have to do without consumables such as ink.
• Easier maintenance: Never forget to regularly maintain your printer again - Home Assistant will remind you.
• Seamless integration: All information about your printer is clearly available in Home Assistant without the need for a separate app.

What is Home Assistant?

Home Assistant is an open source platform for home automation that aims to connect and centrally control all devices in the home. It is designed to provide a unified user interface and simple, flexible control for a variety of smart home devices from different ecosystems. Here are some points in favor of Home Assistant:

1. CompatibilityHome Assistant supports thousands of devices and services from various manufacturers, including lighting, air conditioning, heating, cameras, weather sensors, voice assistants and more.
2. Local controlUnlike many commercial smart home platforms that rely on cloud services, Home Assistant runs locally on your network. This means increased privacy and reliability, as your smart home devices work even without an active internet connection.
3. Automation and scenesOne of the main features of Home Assistant is the ability to create complex automations and scenarios. For example, you can have lights switch on automatically when it gets dark or turn on the heating when the temperature falls below a certain level.
4. Simple user interfaceHome Assistant offers a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to monitor and control devices. This interface is fully customizable.
5. Integration with voice assistantsHome Assistant can be integrated with voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant to enable voice-controlled control of your smart home devices.
6. Open source and community-drivenSince Home Assistant is open source, it is supported by an active community that is constantly developing new integrations and improving existing ones.
7. Data protection and securityAs a locally running platform, Home Assistant has the advantage that the data remains within its own network. This protects privacy and increases security compared to cloud-based solutions.

In summary, Home Assistant is a powerful and flexible solution for those who want to design their own smart home and control their devices centrally, regardless of the manufacturer or ecosystem.

How the HP printer integration in Home Assistant works

The HP Printer Integration from Elad Bar is a great add-on that has been specially developed for HP printers. It supports a variety of printer models and provides you with a wide range of data. With the integration you can, among other things:

• The current Ink or toner level view.
• Read out how many documents you have already printed, scanned or faxed
• Information about Print jobs and the printer counter.
• The Print status (e.g. "ready", "offline", "printing").

You get all the relevant information in Home Assistant delivered directly to your dashboard - clear, concise and always up to date.

HP Color Laser MFP 178nwg multifunction color laser printer, print, copy, scan, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, USB, HP Smart App*

by hp

Price: € 266.99 Buy now on Amazon* Price incl. VAT, Excl. shipping

Amazon

HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP 3302fdwg multifunction color laser printer, fax, automatic two-sided printing, high print speed, CGD touchscreen, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, USB, HP Wolf Pro Security*

by HP

Price: € 389.99 Buy now on Amazon* Price incl. VAT, Excl. shipping

Amazon

HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP 4302dw multifunction color laser printer, Automatic two-sided printing, High print speed, Up to 50,000 pages per month, Wi-Fi, HP Wolf Pro Security*

by HP

Price: € 374.84 Buy now on Amazon* Price incl. VAT, Excl. shipping

Amazon

Last updated on 27. November 2024 at 10:00 - Image source: Amazon Affiliate Program. All statements without guarantee.

Installation of HACS and integration of HP Printers Integration in Home Assistant

Step 1: Installing HACS in Home Assistant

Home Assistant Community Store (HACS) is a custom add-on for Home Assistant that provides access to a variety of custom integrations and plugins developed by the community. How to install HACS:

1. Check requirements: Make sure that your Home Assistant is ideally up to date.
2. Download Execute script: Open a terminal for the Docker container version or the core version.
   • Docker: Dial into the container with: docker exec -it homeassistant bash or (similar)
   • Core: Switch to the user who is running Home Assistant
   • Execute the following command for both variants:
     wget -O - https://get.hacs.xyz | bash -
3. Restarting the Home Assistant: After the files have been copied, restart Home Assistant.
4. Integrate HACS into Home AssistantGo to "Configuration" > "Integrations" > "Add" in the Home Assistant interface and search for HACS. Add it and enter your GitHub token if prompted.

For the supervised version, please refer to the Documentation of HACS itself to read about the installation.

Step 2: Add HP Printers Integration integration via HACS

Once HACS is installed, you can simply add HP Printers Integration:

1. Open HACS: Go to HACS in the Home Assistant interface.
2. Search for integrationClick on "Integrations" and use the search function to search for "HP Printers Integration".
3. Install HP Printers IntegrationFind HP Printers Integration HP Printers Integration in the list and click "Install". This will add the integration to your Home Assistant.
4. Restarting the Home Assistant: Start Home Assistant again to apply the changes.
5. HP Printers Integration ConfigureAfter restarting, you can set up and customize HP Printers Integration via "Configuration" > "Integrations" in Home Assistant.

Conclusion

With these steps, you have successfully installed HACS in your Home Assistant and added the HP Printers Integration integration. This powerful combination opens up a world of additional features and customizations that have been and are being developed by the Home Assistant community. More blog posts and videos on useful integrations to follow. If you don't want to miss out, subscribe to my YouTube channel!

Automation for low toner / ink level notification

This Home Assistant automation ensures that you are informed in good time when the toner in your HP printer is almost empty. This means you can get a replacement in good time and avoid situations where you can no longer print.

alias: Toner level notification
description: Notifies when a toner is almost empty (pages <50 or level -
        sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_black_toner_verbleibend
      - >-
        sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_magenta_toner_verbleibend
      - >-
        sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_cyan_toner_verbleibend
      - >-
        sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_yellow_toner_verbleibend
    below: 50
    trigger: numeric_state
  - entity_id:
      - sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_black_toner_level
      - sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_magenta_toner_level
      - sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_cyan_toner_level
      - sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_yellow_toner_level
    below: 10
    trigger: numeric_state
actions:
  - data:
      title: Printer - Toner almost empty!
      message: >-
        {% set toner_map = {
          "sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_black_toner_verbleibend": "Schwarz",
          "sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_magenta_toner_verbleibend": "Magenta",
          "sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_cyan_toner_verbleibend": "Cyan",
          "sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_yellow_toner_verbleibend": "Gelb",
          "sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_black_toner_level": "Schwarz",
          "sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_magenta_toner_level": "Magenta",
          "sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_cyan_toner_level": "Cyan",
          "sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_yellow_toner_level": "Gelb"
        } %} {% set remaining_entity = trigger.entity_id.replace('_level',
        '_remaining') %} {% set level_entity =
        trigger.entity_id.replace('_remaining', '_level') %}

        The toner {{ toner_map[trigger.entity_id] }} is almost empty: Still {{
        states(remaining_entity) }} pages left and a level of {{
        states(level_entity) }}%.
      data:
        car_ui: true
        notification_icon: mdi:printer-alert
        color: |
          {% set toner_map_color = {
            "sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_black_toner_verbleibend": "black",
            "sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_magenta_toner_verbleibend": "magenta",
            "sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_cyan_toner_verbleibend": "cyan",
            "sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_yellow_toner_verbleibend": "yellow",
            "sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_black_toner_level": "black",
            "sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_magenta_toner_level": "magenta",
            "sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_cyan_toner_level": "cyan",
            "sensor.hp_color_laserjet_mfp_m283fdw_192_168_178_85_yellow_toner_level": "yellow"
          } %} {{ toner_map_color[trigger.entity_id] }}
    action: notify.smartphones
mode: single

Triggers

There are two types of triggers that check whether the toner is running low:

1. Number of remaining pages:
   • The automation monitors the sensors for the remaining print pages (sensor._toner_remaining).
   • If the value of one of these sensors falls below 50, the automation is triggered.
2. Percentage toner level:
   • In addition, the sensors for the toner fill level percentage (sensor._toner_level) is monitored.
   • If the fill level falls below 10 %, a notification is also triggered.

This ensures that the automation recognizes in various ways when the toner is almost empty.

Actions

When a trigger is activated, the automation performs the following action:

1. Send notification:
   A message is sent to the device (or devices) specified in notify.smartphones are deposited.
2. Dynamic message text:
   The message text is created dynamically based on the triggering sensor:
   • A mapping (toner_map) assigns a toner color to each sensor (e.g. "Black", "Cyan").
   • The name of the sensor is analyzed to retrieve additional details such as the remaining pages and the percentage fill level from the corresponding sensors.
   • The message therefore contains:
     • The color of the affected toner.
     • The remaining number of pages.
     • The current percentage of toner level.
3. Additional styles:
   • A suitable icon (mdi:printer-alert) is displayed.
   • The color of the notification is set based on the affected toner color (e.g. black, cyan).

The result is a clearly understandable and visually appealing notification.

Summary of the logic

1. Monitoring: The automation continuously checks the sensors of your HP printer.
2. Release: When a toner is almost empty (less than 50 pages or less than 10 %), the notification is activated.
3. Action: You will be informed which toner is affected and how critical the situation is, based on the exact sensor values.

Advantages of this automation

• Timely information: You will be warned in good time and can order supplies in good time.
• Automatic monitoring: No need to check the toner status manually.
• Individual customization: You can adjust the limits (e.g. 50 pages or 10 %) to suit your needs.

This automation keeps you up to date and in control of your printer's maintenance - one less thing to worry about on a daily basis!

YouTube video implementation

Conclusion

With HP printer integration in Home Assistant, you have full control of your printer maintenance. Save yourself the stress of being left without ink or paper at the crucial moment. The integration not only provides you with all the important data in real time, but also makes it much easier to plan and maintain your printer.

Try it out and enjoy the feeling of never risking an empty cartridge again! With Home Assistant and HP Printer Integration, your everyday life will be a whole lot smarter.

Interested, but lack time or knowledge?

No problem. Contact me and we will discuss your requirements. No matter if business or private.