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Automatically Throttle Download speeds for NZBGet and qBittorrent with Home Assistant

Throttle Download speeds for NZBGet and qBittorrent with Home Assistant

Do you want to automatically slow down your downloads when someone is home during the day

Want full speed downloads at night or when the house is empty? This guide walks through a simple but powerful automation using Home Assistant to control both NZBGet and qBittorrent.

🧩 What You’ll Need

  • Home Assistant
  • NZBGet running on your network
  • qBittorrent (with the Web UI enabled)
  • Basic YAML editing skills
  • Presence tracking set up using person entities (e.g., person.sharon, person.John)

📝 What It Does

This automation:

  • Throttles both NZBGet and qBittorrent to less than 2MB/s each between 9AM and midnight, but only if someone is home
  • Unthrottles them between midnight and 9AM or when no one is home.
  • Reacts to:
    • Home Assistant restarts
    • Time change (9 AM)
    • People arriving or leaving

🛠 Step-by-Step Setup

1. Set Up the REST and Shell Commands

Add the following to your configuration.yaml file:

rest_command:
  nzbget_throttle:
    url: "http://***.***.***.***:6789/jsonrpc"
    method: POST
    headers:
      Content-Type: application/json
    username: ***
    password: ***
    payload: >
      {
        "method": "config",
        "params": [["DownloadRate", "2000"]],
        "id": 1
      }

  nzbget_unthrottle:
    url: "http://***.***.***.***:6789/jsonrpc"
    method: POST
    headers:
      Content-Type: application/json
    username: ***
    password: ***
    payload: >
      {
        "method": "config",
        "params": [["DownloadRate", "0"]],
        "id": 2
      }

Replace:

  • ***.***.***.*** with the IP of the PC running NZBGet
  • *** for username and password with your actual credentials for NZBGet

Now add shell commands for qBittorrent:

shell_command:
  qbittorrent_throttle: >
    bash -c "curl -s -c /tmp/qb_cookie.txt -d 'username=***&password=***' http://***.***.***.***:8080/api/v2/auth/login &&
    curl -s -b /tmp/qb_cookie.txt -d 'limit=2000000' http://***.***.***.***:8080/api/v2/transfer/setDownloadLimit &&
    curl -s -b /tmp/qb_cookie.txt -d 'limit=1000000' http://***.***.***.***:8080/api/v2/transfer/setUploadLimit"

  qbittorrent_unthrottle: >
    bash -c "curl -s -c /tmp/qb_cookie.txt -d 'username=***&password=***' http://***.***.***.***:8080/api/v2/auth/login &&
    curl -s -b /tmp/qb_cookie.txt -d 'limit=0' http://***.***.***.***:8080/api/v2/transfer/setDownloadLimit &&
    curl -s -b /tmp/qb_cookie.txt -d 'limit=0' http://***.***.***.***:8080/api/v2/transfer/setUploadLimit"

Replace:

  • ***.***.***.*** with the IP of the PC running qBittorrent
  • *** for username and password with your actual credentials for qBittorrent

2. Add the Automations

In Home Assistant, go to Settings > Automations & Scenes, click + Create Automation, then Start with an empty automation.

Paste this YAML for throttling:

alias: Throttle Downloads When Home and Between 9AM–Midnight
description: >
  Throttles downloads if personA or PersonB is home and the time is between 9AM and
  midnight.
trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id:
      - person.personA
      - person.personB
  - platform: time
    at: "09:00:00"
  - platform: homeassistant
    event: start
condition:
  - condition: or
    conditions:
      - condition: state
        entity_id: person.PersonA
        state: home
      - condition: state
        entity_id: person.PersonB
        state: home
  - condition: time
    after: "09:00:00"
    before: "23:59:59"
action:
  - service: rest_command.nzbget_throttle
  - service: shell_command.qbittorrent_throttle
  - service: system_log.write
    data:
      message: "Throttling downloads: PersonA or PersonB is home between 9AM and midnight"
      level: warning
mode: single

Replace:

  • person.PersonA and person.PersonB with people you wish to track

Now add a second automation to unthrottle:

alias: Unthrottle Downloads When Away or After Midnight
description: >
  Removes download throttling if PersonA and PersonB are both away, or if it's outside
  of the 9AM–midnight window.
trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id:
      - person.personA
      - person.personB
  - platform: time
    at: "00:00:00"
  - platform: homeassistant
    event: start
condition:
  - condition: or
    conditions:
      - condition: and
        conditions:
          - condition: not
            conditions:
              - condition: state
                entity_id: person.personA
                state: home
          - condition: not
            conditions:
              - condition: state
                entity_id: person.personB
                state: home
      - condition: time
        before: "09:00:00"
      - condition: time
        after: "23:59:59"
action:
  - service: rest_command.nzbget_unthrottle
  - service: shell_command.qbittorrent_unthrottle
  - service: system_log.write
    data:
      message: "Unthrottling downloads: Both away or outside 9AM–midnight"
      level: warning
mode: single

Replace:

  • person.PersonA and person.PersonB with people you wish to track

📈 Testing It

To test the setup:

  1. Manually trigger the automation (from the UI)
  2. Restart Home Assistant during daytime to confirm throttling
  3. Check the System Logs for throttle/unthrottle messages
  4. Log into NZBGet and qBittorrent to confirm download speed limits are changed

⚠️ Tips & Troubleshooting

  • iPhones sometimes go into deep sleep and may delay presence detection. Consider combining person presence with other sensors (like network ping or Bluetooth) if you see delays.
  • Make sure Home Assistant can access the IPs and ports of NZBGet/qBittorrent. Windows firewalls may need exceptions.
  • Confirm DownloadRate and UploadLimit are in bytes per second, not kilobytes.

✅ Summary

You’ve now got a fully automated setup that controls your bandwidth based on who’s home and when

This helps to avoid lag, buffer, or bandwidth saturation while you are home while still taking full advantage of quiet times.

If you have found this information useful feel free to buy me a coffee to help keep this content free and online.

Simon Few

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