Combining two sensors for garage door status

Configuration
1

Hi Team,
Im just moving over from OpenHAB to HomeAssistant with ~95% success rate.
One thing I wasnt still able to hammer out was the thing with virtual components.
In OH there is a very handy way to create an Item and set status based on rule aka automation. Thats really an OOTB way of managing multiple stati.
In HA it seems a bit more manual and not really straight forward - but thats okay.
Whats my issue here:
I have two zigbee contact sensors to indicate the garage door position. The combination of both sensors values tells me whether the door is open,moving or closed. Based on history Im even able to tell if its opening or closing.
I’ve created a virtual component (GarageDoorStatus) in virtual.yaml

version: 1
devices: 
 GarageDoorStatus:
  - platform: cover
    initial_value: 'closed'
    open_close_duration: 15
    open_close_tick: 1

When it comes into Automation where I create the rule, I cannot find the virtual component as defined above to set the status to.

What is my misunderstanding?

2

Can you link to the documentation that told you how to do that please?

You probably need this integration:

3

I took it from here:

4

If you are using a third party integration it is best to say so (and link to it) when asking your question. There are a lot and we do not know them all.

So from the integration description you should note this:

Virtual components for testing Home Assistant systems.

Use the template cover linked above.

5

Noted & understood…
Trying to use the Cover Template… Seems promising as what I see.

6

All right, I’ve played around with templates but it seems there is a missing piece I dont understand.
That is the snippet I’ve put into configuation.yaml to get both sensors state

sensor:
  - platform: template
    sensors:
      garage_contact_group:
        value_template: >-
            {% if is_state('binary_sensor.garage_open_contact_sensor', 'Closed') and is_state('binary_sensor.garage_closed_contact_sensor', 'Closed') %}
                Closed
            {% elif is_state('binary_sensor.garage_open_contact_sensor', 'Open') and is_state('binary_sensor.garage_closed_contact_sensor', 'Open') %}
                Open
            {% else %}
                Doing something
            {% endif %}

No matter what state combination (Open/Open, Closed/Closed) thows “Doing Something”

image
image841×210 8.63 KB

What is my bad?

7

Home Assistant uses device classes to translate states into “pretty” versions for your dashboards and editors. However despite what is shown in the frontend, binary sensor states are always on or off (look in Developer Tools → States to see the untranslated state), which you must use in templates in the backend:

        value_template: >
            {% if is_state('binary_sensor.garage_open_contact_sensor', 'off') and is_state('binary_sensor.garage_closed_contact_sensor', 'off') %}
                Closed
            {% elif is_state('binary_sensor.garage_open_contact_sensor', 'on') and is_state('binary_sensor.garage_closed_contact_sensor', 'on') %}
                Open
            {% else %}
                Doing something
            {% endif %}

And I meant template cover, not template sensor.

8

Thats the way to go! Great thanks