# ha-smartthinq-sensors: LG ThinQ appliances inside Home Assistant, with a polling caveat

> ha-smartthinq-sensors is a Home Assistant custom integration that monitors and controls LG appliances through the ThinQ API, based on the WideQ project, and it covers everything from air conditioners to stylers and water heaters. The significant detail is in the README's important notice, because LG has started blocking the API and the default polling interval is now five minutes for a reason.

**ollo69/ha-smartthinq-sensors** — HomeAssistant custom integration for SmartThinQ LG devices

- Repository: https://github.com/ollo69/ha-smartthinq-sensors
- Stars: 1,329 · Forks: 213
- Language: Python
- License: Apache-2.0
- Published: 2026-10-19 · Updated: 2026-10-19 · Language: en
- Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/ollo69-ha-smartthinq-sensors

## What the integration covers, and how it talks to LG

The component is a Home Assistant custom integration to monitor and control LG devices using the ThinQ API, and it is based on the WideQ project, which is the existing open source work on speaking to LG's cloud. The device list is long and shows the scope of the effort. It covers Air Conditioner, Air Purifier, Dehumidifier, Dishwasher, Dryer, Fan, Hood, Microwave, Range, Refrigerator, Styler, Tower Washer-Dryer, Washer and Water Heater. That is a catalogue of appliances with very different control surfaces, since a refrigerator reports door states and a dehumidifier has a target humidity, and the value of the integration is the translation of each of those into entities Home Assistant can work with. The installation is a HACS default, so the discovery path is the standard community store, and the project is distributed as a `custom_component` that you can also copy into a configuration directory by hand. The maintainer badge names the account behind the work, and the repository is set up as a community forum topic rather than an official project.

## The polling interval exists because LG is blocking the API

The first important notice in the README is the one every user needs to read. LG has started blocking the use of the APIs used by this integration, and users that poll too frequently, meaning over 300 seconds, are automatically blocked for 24 hours. A pull request, number 965, introduced the ability to set the integration's polling interval, with the default value set to 300 seconds, that is five minutes. The consequence is that the status of any devices updates at that rate until you decrease the interval, in which case you will probably be blocked, and the README says it is unknown whether LG will introduce further limitations on the use of the APIs. The alternative named in the same notice is the Home Assistant native LG ThinQ integration, which offers fewer options for monitoring and controlling devices but does not suffer from the limitations listed above. That is a real trade rather than a preference, since this integration gives you more control and more status detail in exchange for a polling model the vendor is actively restricting.

## The account type, and the two error messages you will hit

The second important notice is a hard prerequisite. The component will not work if you logged into the ThinQ application and registered your devices using a social network account, meaning Google, Facebook or Amazon. To use it you need to create a new independent LG account and make sure you log into the ThinQ app and associate your devices with it. The failure message you will see if you ignore this is "No SmartThinQ devices found", and the README explains that this probably means your devices are still associated with the social network account, with a three step fix: remove the devices from the ThinQ app, log out and log back in with the independent LG account, and reconnect the devices in the app. The second error is "Invalid Credential" during configuration or startup, and the cause is quieter, because you need to check in the LG mobile app whether a new Term Of Service is being requested and accept it there. Both are account level problems rather than bugs, and both are documented clearly enough that you can solve them without filing an issue.

## Installing it, either from HACS or by copying a folder

There are two installation routes, and the manual one is four commands over SSH into your Home Assistant server, using the SSH server add-on if you do not already have it. You clone the repository, create the `custom_components` directory next to your `configuration.yaml` if it does not exist, copy the `smartthinq_sensors` directory into it, and optionally delete the cloned repository.

```bash
git clone https://github.com/ollo69/ha-smartthinq-sensors.git
mkdir ~/.homeassistant/custom_components
cp -R ha-smartthinq-sensors/custom_components/smartthinq_sensors/ ~/.homeassistant/custom_components
rm -Rf ha-smartthinq-sensors/
```

The README then shows what a correct installation looks like, with the `custom_components` directory containing a `smartthinq_sensors` folder holding `__init__.py`, `config_flow.py`, `const.py` and more, next to `configuration.yaml` and `secrets.yaml`. You reboot Home Assistant afterwards. With HACS the route is shorter, since you open the Integration tab, search for the SmartThinQ LGE Sensors component and install it. The manual route exists for people running Home Assistant in a way that makes the community store awkward, and the directory layout check is useful because a component copied into the wrong directory fails silently until you look for it.

## Configuring it, and why the locale matters

Configuration happens in the web interface, and the README walks through it in five steps: go to Settings, then Devices and Services, hit shift-reload in the browser, which the README marks as important, click the add integration button, search for SmartThinQ LGE Sensors, and select the integration and follow the setup workflow. The shift-reload step is a recurring home assistant integration annoyance, since a newly copied component is not in the browser's cached list of integrations until the page is hard reloaded. The detail that is specific to this component is the locale. You must use your country and language code, because SmartThinQ accounts are associated with a specific locale, so you have to use the country and language you originally created your account with, with the country code being an ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code and the language code an ISO 639-1 code. Getting that wrong produces an account that appears to have no devices, and the failure looks like a device problem rather than a locale problem.

## The entity model, and where the model specific gaps are

The documentation lists the entities the component creates, and the pattern is a status sensor per appliance plus binary sensors for the events you would trigger automations on. A washer gives you `sensor.my_washer` that turns on and off with the machine, `binary_sensor.my_washer_wash_completed` that you use in automations by triggering when it goes from off to on, and `binary_sensor.my_washer_error_state` where off means fine and on means there is an error, and the dryer has the dry completed and error state equivalents. The status sensor carries attributes including the model ID, the MAC address, run completed, error state, an error message whose format the README marks as unknown, the run state and the previous state in words, and the current course. Two honest caveats come with the table. The README notes that when something does not apply or is off, the value may be a dash, and that the listed values are for a specific contributor's washer and may differ for yours. It also states that some device status may not be correctly detected depending on the model, and that the maintainer is working to map all possible status by developing the component so a model option can be configured in the simplest possible way, with a guide on how to update that information and an invitation to send pull requests.

## How the component is pinned and tested

The requirements file shows the development conventions. The Home Assistant core version is pinned to a specific release, `homeassistant==2025.7.4`, alongside `colorlog`, `pycares` and `pip`, and the tooling is pinned too, with ruff, pre-commit, flake8, isort and black at fixed versions, plus `xmltodict`, `charset_normalizer` and `pycountry` for the data handling the component does, including the country and language codes. There is a separate test requirements file, a `tests/` directory, a `.coveragerc` for coverage, a `.pylintrc` and a `.ruff.toml`, a `.prettierignore` for the documentation files, a `script/` and a `scripts/` directory, a `config/` directory for the integration's own configuration, a `hacs.json` and an `info.md` for the store listing, and both a `Dockerfile.dev` and a `.devcontainer/` directory for a reproducible development environment. A `washerpics/` directory sits at the root, which is where the device imagery used in the documentation lives. Pinning the Home Assistant version is the important detail, since a custom component that has to keep working across Home Assistant releases cannot track a moving core API without either pinning or pinning to something older.

## Conclusion

Adopt ha-smartthinq-sensors if you own LG ThinQ appliances and you want richer control and status than the built-in Home Assistant integration provides, and you are prepared to respect the polling limits the vendor now enforces. Do not adopt it if you need a stable, vendor backed contract, because the README says outright that LG has started blocking the API and that further limitations are possible, and it points you at the native integration as the lower risk option. Before you install, create a separate LG account that is not tied to Google, Facebook or Amazon, since devices registered that way are invisible to this component, and set the polling interval no lower than 300 seconds, because polling more often gets your account blocked for 24 hours. The licence is Apache-2.0, the current release is 0.43.0 from 2026-05-25, and the last push was the same day.

## FAQ

### Why does the integration report no SmartThinQ devices found?

Because the devices are probably still associated with a social network account. The component will not work if you registered your devices in the ThinQ app with Google, Facebook or Amazon. Create an independent LG account, then remove the devices from the app, log out and back in with that account, and reconnect the devices.

### How often does ha-smartthinq-sensors poll LG?

The default polling interval is 300 seconds, that is five minutes, after a pull request added a configurable interval. The README warns that LG has started blocking the APIs and that users polling more frequently are automatically blocked for 24 hours, and that it is unknown whether further limitations will follow.

### Which LG appliances does the integration support?

Air Conditioner, Air Purifier, Dehumidifier, Dishwasher, Dryer, Fan, Hood, Microwave, Range, Refrigerator, Styler, Tower Washer-Dryer, Washer and Water Heater. The README also notes that some device status may not be detected correctly depending on the model.

### How do I install the integration without HACS?

Over SSH into your Home Assistant server, clone the repository, create `~/.homeassistant/custom_components` if it is missing, copy the `smartthinq_sensors` directory from the repository into it, optionally delete the clone and reboot Home Assistant. The component directory should then sit next to your configuration.yaml and contain `__init__.py`, `config_flow.py` and `const.py`.

## Sources

- [Issues](https://github.com/ollo69/ha-smartthinq-sensors/issues)
- [License: Apache-2.0](https://github.com/ollo69/ha-smartthinq-sensors/blob/master/LICENSE)
- [ollo69/ha-smartthinq-sensors on GitHub](https://github.com/ollo69/ha-smartthinq-sensors)
- [README](https://github.com/ollo69/ha-smartthinq-sensors/blob/master/README.md)
- [Releases](https://github.com/ollo69/ha-smartthinq-sensors/releases)

---

Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/ollo69-ha-smartthinq-sensors