Chapter 6
Fixing the Truma cards
The two heating cards Home Assistant creates on its own are unfortunately unusable — for two reasons that have nothing to do with your setup. This chapter builds working replacements. After that the hot water can be switched reliably.
What is wrong
Open the Truma Wasser card. It most likely reads unavailable. Two unrelated things are to blame:
First: "nan" while the heating is off
As long as boiler or heater are off there is no target temperature. Your CampMatic sends nan for it — "not a number". Home Assistant cannot turn that into a temperature and marks the whole card unavailable. The log says:Value error while updating state of climate…truma_wasser … with payload: b'nan': cannot convert float NaN to integerSince the heating is off most of the time, the card is empty most of the time.
Second: a temperature that does not exist
The card offers 40, 60 and 80 °C. For hot water your Truma only knows off, 40 °C and 60 °C. Pick 80 and you will wait forever. Both can be solved cleanly in Home Assistant. We create our own sensors that cope with nan, and on top of them a selector offering exactly the three states that really exist.
Only 40 and 60 degrees — even though the card offers 80
The automatically created card allows 80 °C. On a VW Grand California you should not set that: the control panel in the vehicle only offers up to 60 °C itself, and the hot water plumbing is not rated for more. That is why the selector we are about to build knows only off, 40 and 60 °C. The packages folder
Every sensor from here on goes into a single file. To keep it out of the way of whatever else you have configured, we use the packages mechanism.
Enable packages
Add this at the very end of /config/configuration.yaml:
/config/configuration.yaml
yaml
homeassistant:
packages: !include_dir_named packagesAlready have a homeassistant: block?
Then only add the line packages: !include_dir_named packages underneath it, indented like the other entries. A second homeassistant: block causes an error. Create the folder
Create the folder /config/packages — in the File editor via New folder, or in the terminal:
In the Terminal add-on
bash
mkdir -p /config/packagesInstalling the replacement
Create the file /config/packages/campmatic.yaml. The excerpt below holds the three replacement sensors and the hot water selector. Replace <GERAETE_ID> with your device number.
mqtt:
sensor:
- name: "Hot Water Setpoint"
unique_id: campmatic_<GERAETE_ID>_ww_soll
state_topic: "campmatic/<GERAETE_ID>/climate/truma_wasser/target_temperature/state"
value_template: "{{ none if value | lower in ['nan','inf','-inf',''] else value }}"
unit_of_measurement: "°C"
device_class: temperature
expire_after: 2700
availability_topic: "campmatic/<GERAETE_ID>/status"
payload_available: "online"
payload_not_available: "offline"
- name: "Heating Setpoint"
unique_id: campmatic_<GERAETE_ID>_heiz_soll
state_topic: "campmatic/<GERAETE_ID>/climate/truma_heizung/target_temperature/state"
value_template: "{{ none if value | lower in ['nan','inf','-inf',''] else value }}"
unit_of_measurement: "°C"
device_class: temperature
expire_after: 2700
availability_topic: "campmatic/<GERAETE_ID>/status"
payload_available: "online"
payload_not_available: "offline"
- name: "Hot Water Mode"
unique_id: campmatic_<GERAETE_ID>_ww_mode
state_topic: "campmatic/<GERAETE_ID>/climate/truma_wasser/mode/state"
entity_category: diagnostic
expire_after: 2700
availability_topic: "campmatic/<GERAETE_ID>/status"
payload_available: "online"
payload_not_available: "offline"
template:
- select:
- name: "Hot Water"
unique_id: campmatic_<GERAETE_ID>_warmwasser
icon: mdi:water-thermometer
state: >-
{% set mode = states('sensor.hot_water_mode') %}
{% set soll = states('sensor.hot_water_setpoint') | float(0) %}
{% if mode == 'heat' and soll >= 50 %}60 °C
{% elif mode == 'heat' %}40 °C
{% else %}Off{% endif %}
options: "{{ ['Off', '40 °C', '60 °C'] }}"
select_option:
- choose:
- conditions: "{{ option == 'Off' }}"
sequence:
- action: mqtt.publish
data:
topic: "campmatic/<GERAETE_ID>/climate/truma_wasser/mode/command"
payload: "off"
default:
# A single command. The setpoint switches the boiler on by itself.
- action: mqtt.publish
data:
topic: "campmatic/<GERAETE_ID>/climate/truma_wasser/target_temperature/command"
payload: "{{ 60 if option == '60 °C' else 40 }}"Only ever one command at a time
The setpoint alone is enough to switch on — the boiler comes on by itself. Do not send a separate command for the operating mode afterwards.Here is why: your box collects commands and hands them to the Truma in one go, as soon as the control panel asks for them. That takes a moment. A second command arriving in the meantime overwrites the first — and a switch-on command resets the setpoint to 40 °C in the process. You pick 60 °C and end up with 40 °C.
The same rule applies to the heating in the next chapter: one command, then wait until the state changes before sending the next.
Only one mqtt: and one template: per file
This is the most important rule for this file — and the hardest mistake to track down. If mqtt: appears more than once, only the last block counts. Every sensor listed before it disappears silently and reads unavailable from then on — without the configuration check saying anything.The next chapters add more sensors. Always append them as list entries under the existing
mqtt: sensor:, never with a fresh mqtt: in front. Then: Developer tools → Check configuration, and once that comes back clean, restart Home Assistant.
Reloading is not enough here
New MQTT sensors only appear after a genuine restart. Reload the configuration instead and you will see them in the list but permanently unavailable — and go looking for the fault in the wrong place.
Before you move on
- The
packagesentry is inconfiguration.yaml - The file
/config/packages/campmatic.yamlexists - The configuration check reports no error
- After the restart the entity
select.hot_waterexists and reads Off