Blueprint request: Restart-safe on demand appliance timer with safety shutoff

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Hi everyone,

I’m looking for (or hoping to inspire) a Home Assistant blueprint that can safely handle on-demand appliances with a guaranteed timed shutoff. A good example would be a coffee percolator or a heating pad.

The blueprint should automatically turn the device off after a predetermined amount of time, such as 10 minutes, regardless of how the device was turned on. That includes manual activation from the UI, a scheduled automation, a physical button, or voice control through Alexa using a smart plug. The shutoff must still occur even if Home Assistant restarts, loses connection to the device, or the device temporarily goes unavailable.

It should also support automations that turn the appliance on at a set time, while still enforcing the same safety timeout. In other words, no matter how or when it is turned on, the device should always shut itself off after the defined runtime.

Ideally, the same blueprint would also be suitable for heating devices such as heating pads, with the ability to extend the runtime using a push button while keeping the same safety shutdown behavior. Additional safeguards based on maximum runtime, temperature, or current draw would be a big plus, especially for unattended heating loads.

If something like this already exists, I’d really appreciate a link. If not, I think this could be a useful general-purpose safety timer blueprint for Home Assistant.

Thanks in advance!

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Isn’t going to happen. Your expectations are way too high. Substitute must with should maybe? HomeAssistant hobby quality isn’t life support rated stuff.

Get a cheap knob operated timer power switch if you want that sort of robustness. Otherwise, your life will be full of anxiety and hope, each and every time there is an update, of which they come at least weekly.

Having said that, I have successfully customised power switches (that already have inbuilt countdown timers you can set in the associated app) with Tasmota firmware and these have proved consistently reliable over a period of years for countdown requirements such as electric blanket use. The secret is to offshore the timer task from HomeAssistant to the power switch timer functionality, and let it operate independently from there. Some that monitor power consumption can also use that for overload detection. Tasmota can do both, regardless of the status of HomeAssistant, as well as easily integrate with HomeAssistant. You may not even need to flash Tasmota, depending on the devices’ dependence on any cloud connectivity and privacy issues - do the research.

Summary: Push the smarts onto the power switch device itself, while retaining overall monitoring and control from your HomeAssistant integration