Pulse Counter Sensor¶

The pulse counter sensor allows you to count the number of pulses and the frequency of a signal on any pin.

On the ESP32, this sensor is even highly accurate because it’s using the hardware pulse counter peripheral on the ESP32. However, due to the use of the pulse counter peripheral, a maximum of 8 channels can be used!

# Example configuration entry
sensor:
  - platform: pulse_counter
    pin: GPIOXX
    name: "Pulse Counter"

Configuration variables¶

pin (Required, Pin): The pin to count pulses on.
count_mode (Optional): Configure how the counter should behave on a detected rising edge/falling edge.
- rising_edge (Optional): What to do when a rising edge is detected. One of DISABLE, INCREMENT and DECREMENT. Defaults to INCREMENT.
- falling_edge (Optional): What to do when a falling edge is detected. One of DISABLE, INCREMENT and DECREMENT. Defaults to DISABLE.
use_pcnt (Optional, boolean): Use hardware PCNT pulse counter. Only supported on ESP32. Defaults to true.
internal_filter (Optional, Time): If a pulse shorter than this time is detected, it’s discarded and no pulse is counted. Defaults to 13us. On the ESP32, when using the hardware pulse counter this value can not be higher than 13us, for the ESP8266 or with use_pcnt: false you can use larger intervals too. If you enable this, set up the count_mode to increase on the falling edge, not leading edge. For S0 pulse meters that are used to meter power consumption 50-100 ms is a reasonable value.
update_interval (Optional, Time): The interval to check the sensor. Defaults to 60s.
total (Optional): Report the total number of pulses.
All other options from Sensor.

Note

See integration sensor for summing up pulse counter values over time.

Converting units¶

The sensor defaults to measuring its values using a unit of measurement of “pulses/min”. You can change this by using Sensor Filters. For example, if you’re using the pulse counter with a photodiode to count the light pulses on a power meter, you can do the following:

# Example configuration entry
sensor:
  - platform: pulse_counter
    pin: GPIOXX
    unit_of_measurement: 'kW'
    name: 'Power Meter House'
    filters:
      - multiply: 0.06  # (60s/1000 pulses per kWh)

Counting total pulses¶

When the total sensor is configured, the pulse_counter also reports the total number of pulses measured. When used on a power meter, this can be used to measure the total consumed energy in kWh.

# Example configuration entry
sensor:
  - platform: pulse_counter
    pin: GPIOXX
    unit_of_measurement: 'kW'
    name: 'Power Meter House'
    filters:
      - multiply: 0.06  # (60s/1000 pulses per kWh)

    total:
      unit_of_measurement: 'kWh'
      name: 'Energy Meter House'
      filters:
        - multiply: 0.001  # (1/1000 pulses per kWh)

(Re)Setting the total pulse count¶

Using this action, you are able to reset/set the total pulse count. This can be useful if you would like the total sensor to match what you see on your meter you are trying to match.

# Set pulse counter total from home assistant using this action:
api:
  actions:
    - action: set_pulse_total
      variables:
        new_pulse_total: int
      then:
        - pulse_counter.set_total_pulses:
            id: pulse_counter_id
            value: !lambda 'return new_pulse_total;'

Note

This value is the raw count of pulses, and not the value you see after the filters are applied.

Wiring¶

If you want to count pulses from a simple reed switch, the simplest way is to make use of the internal pull-up/pull-down resistors.

You can wire the switch between a GPIO pin and GND; in this case set the pin to input, pullup and inverted:

# Reed switch between GPIO and GND
sensor:
  - platform: pulse_counter
    pin:
      number: 12
      inverted: true
      mode:
        input: true
        pullup: true
    name: "Pulse Counter"

If you wire it between a GPIO pin and +3.3V, set the pin to input, pulldown:

# Reed switch between GPIO and +3.3V
sensor:
  - platform: pulse_counter
    pin:
      number: 12
      mode:
        input: true
        pulldown: true
    name: "Pulse Counter"

The safest way is to use GPIO + GND, as this avoids the possibility of short circuiting the wire by mistake.

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