Building a reusable template

Configuration
1

In the spirit of DRY (Don’t repeat yourself), I’m looking to build a resusable sensor template. My suspicion is that this needs to be a custom component, but before I go down that route I want to ensure there isn’t another way.

I have the following repeated four times in my config, once for each member of the family. The only bit that changes is the proximity sensor (in this case proximity.ali_travel). Essentially, the sensor shows how far someone is from home, and changes the icon depending on at home, moving (away/towards home) or parked away from home.

So can this be packaged in such a way that it can be reused by just passing in the proximity sensor?

    ali_travel:
      friendly_name: Ali Travel
      value_template: >
        {% if states('proximity.ali_travel') == '0' -%}
          Home
        {%- else -%}
          {{ states('proximity.ali_travel') }} {{ state_attr('proximity.ali_travel', 'unit_of_measurement') }}
        {%- endif %}
      icon_template: >
        {% if states('proximity.ali_travel') == '0' -%}
        mdi:home-outline
        {%- elif state_attr('proximity.ali_travel', 'dir_of_travel') == 'stationary' -%}
        mdi:car-brake-parking
        {%- elif state_attr('proximity.ali_travel', 'dir_of_travel') == 'towards' -%}
          mdi:home-import-outline
        {%- elif state_attr('proximity.ali_travel', 'dir_of_travel') == 'away_from' -%}
        mdi:home-export-outline
        {%- else -%}
        mdi:car-off
        {%- endif %}
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2

A Template Sensor’s YAML configuration doesn’t allow you to pass anything to it.

3

I realise that, that was why I was seeing if this could be moved into it’s own template somehow. I’m thinking my only option is to build a custom component.

4

There’s no native facility to template YAML configurations for Template Sensors.

FWIW, there’s a custom facility for Dashboard YAML configurations. Perhaps you can use that for inspiration while creating your custom component.

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5

You can try to do the same with blueprints and helpers maybe,

The issue remain the same, you will have duplicated automations.

Another option might be the use of AppDeamon

6

Neither are for creating Template Sensors (the example in the first post is a Template Sensor).

Reference: Blueprints

7

Sure it would be updating a sensor with an automation and not templating.

But there’s actually no integrates way to avoid repetition.

With repetitive configuration file, when there’s no way to avoid repetition I tend to generate my config file with a script, therefore even if the code repeat itself I do not repeat myself and edits are way faster.

So you can use dedicated yalm file generated programmatically

8

The request isn’t for updating a sensor.

The request is for a method to easily create multiple instances of a single Template Sensor configuration, each with only minor differences. Effectively, a means of templating YAML. There’s no native facility for that purpose.

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9

I ran into the same issue. As of HA 2023.4, macros work nicely to reduce code duplication in templates, be it with some minor drawbacks at the moment.

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