Actual status entity in generic-thermostat entity

Configuration
1

Would it be possible somehow to enable functionality that my climate entity is actually active?
When configuring the climate entity I provide a “heater” entity and a “target_sensor”, however, it would be great to be able to add another entity here to confirm the actual status. For electric heaters this would probably be the power consumption (with a threshold) or it could also be a binary_sensor. For example I have a temperature sensor on my (dumb) heatpump measuring the temperature from it, when there is a delta compared to the room temperature this allows me to have a status of the heatpump in HA.
This could also be relevant for a electric heater with a built in thermostat, the climate entity could be “Enabled” but not actually active.

2

If you set up your generic thermostat like this:

#
#Create a generic Thermostat for family room fireplace
#Use Temperature sensor located on Family Room East wall
#
climate:
  - platform: generic_thermostat
    name: Family Room Fireplace
    heater: switch.family_room_fireplace
    target_sensor: sensor.multisensor_6_air_temperature
    min_temp: 45
    max_temp: 78
    target_temp: 50
    away_temp: 45
    initial_hvac_mode: heat

You have the following attributes:

Screenshot from 2022-01-02 16-20-45
Screenshot from 2022-01-02 16-20-45499×650 44.2 KB

So hvac_action is idle

you can get any attribute like this:

state_attr('climate.yourthermostat', 'hvac_action')

3

But that does not actually confirm the status, it only shows the commanded state.
If for example the heater connected to this switch was unplugged, it would show “Heating” even if no heat is produced (power reading=0)

4

That’s when I use alert…

  - platform: template
    sensors:
      boiler_working:
        friendly_name: "Boiler Running"
        value_template: "{{ is_state('switch.house_boiler','on') and (states('sensor.boiler_water_out')|float(0) > 39.5) }}"
        delay_off:
          minutes: 5
      boiler_fault:
        friendly_name: "Boiler Fault"
        value_template: "{{ is_state('switch.house_boiler','on') and is_state('binary_sensor.boiler_working','off') }}"
        delay_on:
          minutes: 15

This is my binary sensor that uses the temperature of the outgoing water pipe to tell if the heating is actually working and - this -

boiler_fault:
  name: Boiler Fault
  done_message: "The Boiler is working normally"
  message: "*Boiler Fault* The boiler is not working!"
  entity_id: binary_sensor.boiler_fault
  state: 'on'
  repeat: 30
  can_acknowledge: true
  notifiers:
    - tg_house_group

Is my alert configuration that tells me if the boiler is supposed to be on, but clearly isn’t working.

1 Like
5

yeah, I have things like that created myself too, I was just thinking/hoping it could be useful to have it in the actual climate entity somehow.