NDBC Ocean Buoy — Home Assistant integration

Displays current marine observations from NOAA's National Data Buoy Center buoys in Home Assistant. Add a buoy by its station ID and get one device per station with sensors for the observations that station reports.

What it does

• One config entry = one station = one HA device.
• Data sources, merged per update:
  • latest_obs/<station>.rss — backbone (name, location, metric temps/pressure, wind, significant wave height). Required.
  • latest_obs/<station>.txt — adds the swell / wind-wave decomposition the RSS feed often omits, and fills wind/wave gaps. Best-effort: if it is unavailable, that cycle simply has no decomposition.
• Polls every 10 minutes by default (NDBC updates roughly hourly). Adjustable per station via the integration's Configure button.
• Creates a sensor only for observations a station actually reports, so a land station that only sends pressure and water temperature won't get empty wind/wave entities.

Sensors (created when reported)

Sensor	Unit
Observation time	timestamp
Wind direction	° (with cardinal attribute, e.g. NW)
Wind speed / Wind gust	knots
Wave height (significant)	feet
Wave period (dominant)	seconds
Swell height / period / direction	feet / seconds / cardinal text
Wind wave height / period / direction	feet / seconds / cardinal text
Pressure	hPa
Pressure tendency	hPa (diagnostic)
Air temperature / Dew point / Water temperature	°C
Location	lat, lon string with latitude, longitude, map_url attributes

Units are stored as NDBC reports them (knots/feet for wind and waves; metric for temperature and pressure). Home Assistant converts them for display according to your unit settings.

The swell vs. wind-wave breakdown comes from the free-text .txt feed and exists only for buoys with directional wave sensors. Stations without it still report significant wave height + dominant wave period when available.

Installation (HACS)

1. HACS → Integrations → ⋮ → Custom repositories.
2. Add this repository's URL, category Integration.
3. Install NDBC Ocean Buoy, then restart Home Assistant.
4. Settings → Devices & Services → Add Integration → NDBC Ocean Buoy, and enter a station ID (e.g. 46206 or neaw1). Repeat for each buoy.

Dashboard examples

Entity IDs follow the pattern sensor.buoy_<id>_<name>_<measurement>. Check the actual IDs in Developer Tools → States and adjust the examples below.

See the buoy on a map

type: map
entities:
  - sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_location

Human-readable card with a Google Maps link

type: markdown
content: >
  ## {{ state_attr('sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_location','friendly_name')
  | replace(' Location','') }}

  [📍 Confirm location on map]({{
  state_attr('sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_location','map_url') }})


  **Wind:** {{ states('sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_wind_speed') }} kn
  ({{ state_attr('sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_wind_direction','cardinal') }}),
  gusting {{ states('sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_wind_gust') }} kn

  **Seas:** {{ states('sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_wave_height') }} ft
  @ {{ states('sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_wave_period') }} s

  **Air:** {{ states('sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_air_temperature') }} °C
  · **Water:** {{ states('sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_water_temperature') }} °C

  *Observed {{ relative_time(states('sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_observation_time') | as_datetime) }} ago*

Plain entities list

type: entities
title: La Perouse Bank
entities:
  - sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_wind_speed
  - sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_wind_gust
  - sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_wind_direction
  - sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_wave_height
  - sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_wave_period
  - sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_pressure
  - sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_air_temperature
  - sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_water_temperature
  - sensor.buoy_46206_la_perouse_bank_observation_time