I can’t quite work out how to create an automation that triggers if an entity ever falls below a value between a time range.
My hot water system has been a bit flaky lately, so I want to create an automation that detects when it doesn’t start. My hot water system makes power from 10am to about 1pm. I don’t have anything that directly detects when it’s running, but it uses about 800w of power, and so my household power entity will be above 1kw during that time.
So my automation will go like this:
Between 10am and 11am every day, if my household power ever falls below 1kw, send a message to my phone.
(I’ve chosen 10am to 11am, even though the HW system runs for a few hours, because I want to detect if it doesn’t run early enough that I can intervene, but I need to sample over a reasonable time frame (an hour) in case something else is running to cause spikes)
Thanks for the reply. At first glance, that was the way I was thinking. However if I enter into the time range, and the current consumption is already under 1kw, and it stays under for the entire 10-11 timeframe, then it won’t trigger. Is that correct?
If you want it to send a notification for that particular situation, add a Time Trigger set for 10:00 and a Numeric State Condition that confirms power is below 1kw.
The combination of the two triggers and two conditions will ensure that you receive a notification if the power drops below 1kw during the time period or if the power is already below 1kw when the time period begins.
Keep that concept in mind because it’s used fairly often to solve these kind of applications (value crosses a threshold but it’s only of interest during a specific time period).
It seems to be working. My hot water system failed to start again today, and I got a message on my phone. Nice! Still need to check the “negative” case (when HW actually works), but I’m going to call that a win. Thanks guys!