Binary sensor based on time sensor

Configuration
#1

Hi,

I want to create a sensor based on another sensor (which I preferable do not want to see in the interface or log book).
Right now i have a sensor “LastActive” that gets updated everytime a sensor sends me something. I would like to have a boolean sensor instead named “Active” which is true if Last active is in the past 30 minutes and false otherwise.

Anyone who can point me in the right direction?

#2

Post an example or two of this sensor’s value.

#3

Here’s an example:

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#4

The UI can change the appearance of an entity’s datetime value so I need to see the actual datetime value which is displayed in Developer Tools > States. Go to that web page, find sensor.chinotto_lastactive and report its State value (the value may or may not be identical to what you already posted).

#5

Found it.
Here’s the value:

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2022-10-21T14:47:01+00:00

#6 
template:
  - binary_sensor:
      - name: Chinotto Active
        state: "{{ now() - states('sensor.chinotto_lastactive') | as_datetime < timedelta(minutes=30) }}"

This Template Binary Sensor reports on if the time difference between now and the time reported by sensor.chinotto_lastactive is less than 30 minutes (otherwise it reports off).

#7

Seems to work. Thank you!

1 Like
#8

You’re welcome!

Please consider marking my post above with the Solution tag. It will automatically place a check-mark next to the topic’s title and a link below your first post that leads to the Solution post. This helps users find answers to similar questions. For more information, refer to guideline 21 in the FAQ.

#9

Alright, marked as answer.
Do you have any idea how I could change the text to “Yes” / “No” instead of “On” / “Off”?

#10

Actually, I had suggested marking my post since that’s the one that provides the Solution. Your post simply contains a copy of what I proposed.

#11

In some cases, you can use device_class to make the UI display on/off as other values. However, there’s nothing available for device_class that will display on/off as Yes/No. Therefore you will have to change it from a Template Binary Sensor to a Template Sensor.

template:
  - sensor:
      - name: Chinotto Active
        state: "{{ iif(now() - states('sensor.chinotto_lastactive') | as_datetime < timedelta(minutes=30), 'Yes', 'No') }}"
#12

Thank you, also works. Will take some time to get used to this code within YAML syntax. :slight_smile:

#13

It’s Jinja2 and there’s an introduction to it in the documentation section named Templating.