Can't figure out automation based on power usage

Configuration
1

I am totally new to Home Assistant coming over from SmartThings. HA seems a bit less intuitive than ST but I’ve been figuring out most of my needs.

One issue I’m having is trying to duplicate an automation I had in ST. I have a power monitoring plug that I plug my AVR (audio/video receiver) into. I use that to detect if the AVR is on (over 10 watts) and then turn on my living room lights. Likewise, I had it set so if it dropped under 10 watts to turn them off. I’m not having any luck with this in HA.

Here is the YAML for the turn on automation (I created it in the visual editor as I’m still learning YAML):

alias: LR Lights on with AVR
description: ""
trigger:
  - platform: numeric_state
    entity_id:
      - sensor.avr_lr_energy_power_2
    above: 10
condition: []
action:
  - service: scene.turn_on
    target:
      entity_id:
        - scene.fp_lights_normal
        - scene.sofa_lights_normal
    data: {}
mode: single

What am I doing wrong?

2

Your automation looks fine.

Check the debug trace of the automation. Let us know what it shows (you can download the json of the trace and post it as well).

3

When I click on the traces button in the automation, it says, “no traces found”. Does that mean the automation never ran?

If so, then why not? I checked the state of the device and I watched it go well over 10 watts which should have triggered the automation.

4

Just to confirm, it went from BELOW 10 to above?

5

And to supplement that: Automations #1: trigger only fires when it changes from not true to true.

6

Correct. Although I think I now see that the automation works but it is taking like 5 minutes to activate. I just assumed after 10-15 seconds that it wasn’t working and, becasue it was evening, I manually turned on the lights. That is how long it takes the plug to report the state change?. I could’v sworn I saw the values change in HA without anything happening. But my tests this morning show it works every time. Just very delayed.

When I had the same thing set up in SmartThings, it was instantaneous. I was using a SmartThings plug, but I couldn’t get that to work in Home Assistant, so I’m now using a Sonoff S31 flashed with Tasmota.