"Block" a state change on start-up?

Third party integrations Node-RED
1

Is there a way to block an active state change on HA startup?

I built a flow that checks MQTT message for energy usage on our washer. It sends a broadcast when state changes to 0. However, I realized today, after updating HA, it also triggers said state change on startup. I already have “Output only on state change” checked.

Flow:

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Node:

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Is there a way to block said change only on HA startup?

2

Try the “rbe” node. It has worked for me.
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Cheers

3

It’s not working.

The issue is the state does change, it’s going from “Unavailable” to “0” upon update.

I’m not sure what would be the best way to manage this one:

  • State does change
  • But the change is purely an update message …

Are you using MQTT? Are you connecting directly to the topic? If so, how? What’s the topic format? prefix/topic/[???]/. I used an explorer, but I was a little confused on how to understand the topic strings.

4

I had to do the same thing to stop my washer and dryer notifications from showing after every ha restart. The problem started in my automation, which used a state change node and checks if it is below 12W for a few seconds. Since the machines draw constant power while off, it only triggers once when the cycle ends. However, during reboot the states go to unavailable for a bit, then a new 0W state is sent, which triggers the notification.

I fixed this using a state trigger node. The allowed conditions include current and previous states are not unknown or unavailable, and current state is <12. Then I have a default output for previous state >=12, which feeds the rest of the notification flow. This way, nothing flows after a restart, and anytime the power drops below 12W (falling edge detect) the flow starts. I have a delay downstream to make sure it stays <12 for longer than 5sec (since the washer sometimes briefly dips below that during a cycle).

The event trigger nodes are very useful for this sort of thing… I was able to greatly simplify some of my flows by removing function nodes and replacing the if/else checks with conditions in the trigger node.

5

Ah ha! Nice. After several restarts and a fair bit of debugging, I think I finally figured out it.

  • For starters: State Type has to be “String.” Setting it to “Integer” will prevent proper checking against string states, e.g. “unknown.”
  • Set constraints of previous state to be “is not” “unknown” and “is not” “0” (our washer doesn’t draw ambient power
    • “is not” “0” is necessary as MQTT continuously triggers a state change, even if it’s from 0 to 0.
    • I also found out Tasmota MQTT updates state every 5 minutes.
  • Output only on “is” “0” - I changed payload (which removes a node!) to “Washer Finished”

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I have no other downstream nodes. msg.payload is sent directly to my notification nodes.