I have a coffee machine which does not turn off automatically. In case I accidentally leave the machine on, I want to turn it off after let’s say one hour using a HomeWizard energy socket to prevent wasting energy, or in an extreme situation a fire.
See below the load profile [W] of the coffee machine while turned on. Between peaks, the coffee machine was also on but not consuming energy since it was not heating up at those times.
I tried and searched the docs and forum for multiple hours now, but cannot come up with a solution. The best direction I came up with, is to use a utility meter with a quarter-hourly cycle. I could then create an automation to turn off the Energy Socket when:
But I think it’s not possible to use old utility meter values in defining an automation trigger, or create a new sensor based on old values of other sensors.
If you really need to do it this way, rather than the much simpler purely time-based approach, I guess you could try an integral helper for your trigger.
I had a dumb coffee maker until recently, and I could forget leaving it on, so I put a smart plug on it, used a Timer automation to turn it off. Sometimes throughout the day 3 pots are consumed. So it’s on often, but we don’t want it to burn the coffee for hours either. It’s on for 20 min. after brewing, and shuts down (if it got cold, that’s what microwaves are for [g]).
Because this past year I’ve been getting up to speed with HA, I restart HA often enough. If not that, power outages were a too common an occurrence this past year.
All that lead me to learn how to use Timers and a Timer Automation to insure my coffee maker didn’t run for more than 20 min after a brewing (triggered by turning on the smart plug).
Bjorn,
I was going to suggest looking into these video tutorials. It was the Smart Home Assistant Junkie that I followed to find my way with Timer Automations.
@jackjourneyman , the challenge then for me is how to define if and when the machine is turned “on”, since this is normally done using the dumb switch of the machine itself, not on the button on the energy socket. So the HomeWizard energy socket should be always on, unless I forget to turn off the machine.
(The energy socket is in the back of a cabinet, so I don’t want to use that to turn the machine on and off by default)
For another application I have a smart plug on all the time, but I monitor the plug’s Amperage indicator to determine if the unit is actually running. When the Woodstove switch is on, but the stove isn’t up to temperature yet, the fan’s Woodstove Current will read 0.0A. I use this to monitor whether the woodstove needs attention. FWIW.
Thanks @bob.t , also for the timer video’s. Maybe I can use timers and current measurement to define a custom sensor indicating whether or not the machine is on. And then take @jackjourneyman’s approach to turn off the socket when running for an hour. I’ll start working on that and let you know if I found a solution.
Thanks for joining the discussion @Fanful. It’s not a problem to go into the cabinet to turn on the socket in an accidental case I left the coffee machine on and the socket turned off. Won’t happen too often I hope.
Right, but if you make an automation to turn off the switch an hour after it was turned on, it will turn it off every time.
So you need a way to recognise not just when the machine is on, but specifically when it is on, but not making coffee anymore. This may not be that simple, especially if you want it to be robust and not shut the machine down when you use it in different than usual way, for example during a party, preparing lots of coffee one after another.
