Beacon Docs

Grocery

Beacon integrates with Grocy and AnyList through Home Assistant to display and manage your grocery shopping lists. You can view items, add new ones, check them off, and see alerts for expiring products.

How the integration works

Beacon tries two grocery sources in order:

  1. Grocy: If the sensor.grocy_shopping_list entity exists and has items, Grocy is used
  2. AnyList: If Grocy is not available, Beacon looks for todo.anylist_* entities
  3. None: If neither is available, the grocery drawer shows a message to connect a service

The source detection happens automatically — you do not need to configure which service to use.

Grocy integration setup

Grocy is a self-hosted groceries and household management solution. To use it with Beacon:

Step 1: Install Grocy

If you do not already have Grocy running:

  1. Install the Grocy add-on from the Home Assistant Add-on Store
  2. Start the add-on and complete the initial Grocy setup through its web UI
  3. Add some products and a shopping list

Step 2: Install the Grocy integration in Home Assistant

  1. Go to Settings > Devices & Services
  2. Click Add Integration
  3. Search for Grocy
  4. Enter your Grocy URL and API key (found in Grocy’s settings)
  5. Click Submit

Step 3: Verify the entities

After the integration is set up, verify these entities exist:

  • sensor.grocy_shopping_list — your shopping list items
  • sensor.grocy_expiring_products — products nearing their best-before date
  • sensor.grocy_meal_plan — your meal plan (optional)

Check in Developer Tools > States by searching for “grocy”.

Step 4: Open Beacon

Navigate to the Grocery view (shopping cart icon in the sidebar). You should see your Grocy shopping list with a “via Grocy” label.

AnyList integration setup

AnyList is a popular shared grocery list app. Since AnyList has no official public API, the integration works through a custom Home Assistant integration.

Step 1: Install the AnyList integration

  1. Install the AnyList custom component via HACS (Home Assistant Community Store)
  2. Restart Home Assistant
  3. Go to Settings > Devices & Services
  4. Click Add Integration
  5. Search for AnyList
  6. Enter your AnyList email and password
  7. Click Submit

Step 2: Verify the entities

The integration creates todo.anylist_* entities for each of your AnyList lists:

  • todo.anylist_grocery — your main grocery list
  • todo.anylist_costco — other lists you have in AnyList

Step 3: Open Beacon

Navigate to the Grocery view. You should see your AnyList items with a “via AnyList” label. Beacon uses the first discovered AnyList entity as the primary list.

Using the shopping list

Opening the grocery view

Click the shopping cart icon in the sidebar. On mobile, tap More then Grocery.

The grocery drawer shows:

  1. Handle bar: Tap to expand/collapse. Shows the “Grocery” label, unchecked item count badge, and source indicator
  2. Quick-add input: A text field to add new items
  3. Expiring items alert: A yellow alert bar when products are nearing expiration (Grocy only)
  4. Shopping list: All items sorted with unchecked items first, then checked items, alphabetically within each group

Quick-add items

  1. Tap the text input at the top of the list
  2. Type the item name (e.g., “Milk”)
  3. Tap Add or press Enter
  4. The item is added to your shopping list and synced to Grocy/AnyList

Checking off items

  1. Tap any item in the list
  2. If unchecked, it becomes checked (moves to the bottom of the list with a checkmark)
  3. If already checked, tapping unchecks it (moves back to the top)

Updates are optimistic — the UI updates immediately while the API call happens in the background.

Item details

Each item may show:

  • Name: The item name
  • Quantity: Number or amount (if set in Grocy/AnyList)
  • Category: Product category or group (if available)

Expiring items alerts

When using Grocy, Beacon checks for products expiring within the next 3 days. If any are found:

  • A yellow alert bar appears at the top of the grocery list
  • The alert shows the count and names of the first 3 expiring items
  • Example: “3 items expiring soon: Milk, Yogurt, Eggs…”

This feature is only available with Grocy (AnyList does not track expiration dates).

Meal plan display

When using Grocy with a meal plan configured, Beacon can display today’s planned meals. The meal plan bar shows:

  • Meal type: Breakfast, Lunch, or Dinner
  • Recipe name: The planned recipe
  • Notes: Any additional notes

The meal plan data is fetched from sensor.grocy_meal_plan and filtered to the current day. The bar is collapsible — tap it to collapse to a small icon, tap again to expand.

Meal types are mapped from Grocy’s section labels:

  • Sections containing “breakfast” or “morning” map to Breakfast
  • Sections containing “lunch” or “noon” map to Lunch
  • Everything else maps to Dinner

Data refresh

  • The grocery list refreshes automatically every 2 minutes
  • Adding, checking, or unchecking an item triggers an immediate refresh
  • The expiring products alert refreshes with the list
  • The meal plan refreshes every 5 minutes

Troubleshooting

”Connect Grocy or AnyList in Home Assistant to see your lists”

This message appears when Beacon cannot find either a Grocy or AnyList integration. Verify:

  1. The Grocy integration is set up and sensor.grocy_shopping_list exists in HA
  2. OR the AnyList integration is set up and todo.anylist_* entities exist
  3. Beacon is connected to Home Assistant (no “Connecting…” badge)

Items do not sync back to the app

Beacon uses Home Assistant’s REST API to communicate with Grocy/AnyList. Check:

  1. The Home Assistant token is valid
  2. The Grocy/AnyList integration is functioning (check Developer Tools > States for the entity)
  3. Open the browser console (F12) and look for “Beacon: Failed to…” error messages

Expiring items alert does not appear

  1. Verify sensor.grocy_expiring_products exists in Home Assistant
  2. Ensure products in Grocy have best-before dates set
  3. The alert only shows products expiring within the next 3 days

AnyList shows wrong list

Beacon uses the first todo.anylist_* entity it discovers. If you have multiple AnyList lists, the one that appears depends on the order HA returns entities. To ensure the correct list is used, you may need to rename entities in HA.

Quick-add does nothing

  1. Make sure the input is not empty (whitespace-only is rejected)
  2. Check the browser console for errors
  3. Verify the underlying service (grocy.add_generic or todo.add_item) works by calling it from Developer Tools > Services in HA

Was this page helpful?

Give Feedback