Customize icons not working

I am trying to set conditional icons using customization
Friendly name part works, so I know this customization file loaded
Icons not work.
Neither conditional nor simple customization for counter.errors_counter
Does anyone see any problem?
(I use Lovelace UI in yaml mode)
No errors or warnings in the log file.

binary_sensor.router_tanda_floor_1:
  friendly_name: "WiFi router FL1"
binary_sensor.color_printer:
  friendly_name: "Color printer"
counter.warnings_counter:
  templates:
    icon: >
      if (state == 0) return 'mdi:lightbulb-outline';
      return 'mdi:lightbulb';
counter.errors_counter:
  templates:
    icon: 'mdi:lightbulb-outline'
climate.living_room:
  templates:
    icon: >
      if (state === 'heat') return 'mdi:fire';
      if (state === 'cool') return 'mdi:snowflake';
      if (state === 'idle') return 'mdi:sleep';
      return 'mdi:power-off';
    icon_color: >
      if (state === 'heat') return 'red';
      if (state === 'cool') return 'blue';
      if (state === 'idle') return 'black';

You need to install Custom-UI for this.

Really?
But i see here https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/configuration/customizing-devices/ examples of changing icons. This suppose functionality exists in core intallation? Or do i missing something?

Nowhere on that page does it say you can use templates. You can only assign a new static icon using customize.

Where did you get that strange syntax from?

Itā€™s not even how HA does templates. https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/configuration/templating/

It looks suspiciously like the syntax used in the custom-ui that @VDRainer linked to above.

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Ok ok. I am new to this and donā€™t fully understand the ways each thing works yet. The documentation is incomplete, not very clear and full of typos and wrong examples. And I know how to use documentation, I am engineer :wink: Anyway. Thank you for pointing out that it is Custom-UI functions. I will install it now.

just to be a bit more specific:
you can customize icons in regular HA, without custom-ui, on several components that support this. Template sensors, and template binary sensors, and a few more can use these Jinja templates, see https://www.home-assistant.io/components/#search/template

On other components you need custom-ui.

thereā€™s a big difference between the 2:
Ha templates use regular Jinja, http://jinja.pocoo.org/docs/dev/templates/ and https://home-assistant.io/docs/configuration/templating/, and are evaluated server side.
Custom-ui templates use javascript, see https://github.com/andrey-git/home-assistant-custom-ui/blob/master/docs/templates.md, and are evaluated in browser.

General advice would be to use HA templates whenever you can, and use the custom-ui templates if you must.

Both have impact on performance, especially when evaluating states of other entitiesā€¦

the climate.living_room isnā€™t a components listed to use icon_templates (as far as I could check) so a custom-ui JS templates would be necessary. The one posted is perfect, and would do the trick. Id give icon_color and extra line for the ā€˜elseā€™ (which you need not state), simply enter
return 'grey';

icon_color is a custom-ui template always, since it isnā€™t available in the HA templates defaults.

an example for Jinja would be:

        icon_template: >
          {% set state = states('sensor.number_of_days_next_alarm') %}
          {% if state == 'Not set' %} mdi:alarm-off
          {% elif state == 1 %} mdi:numeric-{{state}}-box-outline
          {% else %} mdi:numeric-{{state}}-box-multiple-outline
          {% endif %}

Note that these donā€™t need quoted values for the icons, while JS always uses quotes.

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All of that may be more or less true but the examples that you posted with your code you didnā€™t get from the documentation that you posted.

You are right. Becouse number of examples in documentation are very limited and amost all relevant examples I take from this site. But it is not always clear is discussed functionality from core or from custom components.

So exactly becouse of perfomance I would say that client side evaluation preferable in most cases. Especially if HA runs on PI and you are working with UI usually from PC with x10 processor power.

well, ymmv, as always. And I think I must say youā€™re right.

One extra advantage of using native templating is you wonā€™t need external or custom components.

I have a lot of customizations. Not one entity isnā€™t customizedā€¦ and yet, the only ā€˜lagā€™ or performance issues I see are templates using other templates, in regular Jinja that isā€¦

Iā€™ve solved most of these by finding the correct entity_id;s to mention in the templates.

Custom-ui is always spot on. Still, it was advice the autor of custom-ui gave me.

The migration to Lovelace might be another reason for folks to use HA native as much as possible.

to get back to this topic: are your icons working now?

Yes. Working now after i installed custom-ui. Thanks. I would also prefer to use only native functions. But i need this for counter and I donā€™t want to create additional sensor etc. Things are pretty complicated as is. And anyway native template doesnā€™t allow color change and this is really nice. I hope they will add this functionality one day.

great its working for you now. YW.

as an example, maybe a bit extreme , this template changes the icon only after a while, and sensor.time kicks in:

      number_of_days_next_alarm:
        friendly_name: Days to next alarm
        entity_id:
          - sensor.time
          - input_boolean.alarmclock_wd_enabled
          - input_boolean.alarmclock_we_enabled
          - input_number.alarmclock_wd_hour
          - input_number.alarmclock_wd_minute
          - input_number.alarmclock_we_hour
          - input_number.alarmclock_we_minute
        icon_template: >
          {% set state = states('sensor.number_of_days_next_alarm') %}
          {% if state == 'Not set' %} mdi:alarm-off
          {% elif state == 1 %} mdi:numeric-{{state}}-box-outline
          {% else %} mdi:numeric-{{state}}-box-multiple-outline
          {% endif %}
        value_template: >
          {% if is_state('input_boolean.alarmclock_wd_enabled','on') %}
            {% if now().weekday() in [0,1,2,3] %}
              {% if now().time().strftime('%H:%M') < states('sensor.alarmclock_wd_time') %} 0
              {% else %} 1
              {% endif %}

            {% elif now().weekday() == 4 %}
              {% if is_state('input_boolean.alarmclock_we_enabled','on') %} 
                {% if now().time().strftime('%H:%M') < states('sensor.alarmclock_wd_time') %} 0
                {% else %} 1
                {% endif %}
              {% else %} 3
              {% endif %}

            {% elif now().weekday() == 5 %}
              {% if is_state('input_boolean.alarmclock_we_enabled','on') %}
                {% if now().time().strftime('%H:%M') < states('sensor.alarmclock_we_time') %} 0
                {% else %} 1
                {% endif %}
              {% else %} 2
              {% endif %}

            {% elif now().weekday() == 6 %}
              {% if is_state('input_boolean.alarmclock_we_enabled','on') %}
                {% if now().time().strftime('%H:%M') < states('sensor.alarmclock_we_time') %} 0
                {% else %} 1
                {% endif %}
              {% else %} 1
              {% endif %}
            {% endif %}

          {% elif is_state('input_boolean.alarmclock_we_enabled','on') %}
              {% if now().weekday() in [0,1,2,3] %} {{5 - now().weekday()}}
              {% elif now().weekday() in [4] %} 1

              {% elif now().weekday() in [5] %}
                {% if now().time().strftime('%H:%M') < states('sensor.alarmclock_we_time') %} 0
                {% else %} 1
                {% endif %}

              {% elif now().weekday() == 6 %}
                {% if now().time().strftime('%H:%M') < states('sensor.alarmclock_we_time') %} 0
                {% else %} 6
                {% endif %}
              {% endif %}

          {% else %} Not set
          {% endif %}

while using custom-ui:

    sensor.number_of_days_next_alarm:
      templates:
        icon: >
          if (state == 'Not set') return 'mdi:alarm-off';
          if (state == 1) return 'mdi:numeric-' + state + '-box-outline';
          return 'mdi:numeric-' + state + '-box-multiple-outline';
        icon_color: >
          if (state == 'Not set') return 'grey';
          return 'red';

makes it instantaneous.

Got to keep in mind that when using templates based on the value of another entity (or maybe an icon ā€¦) it can propagate that lag throughout the HA, and even though the custom-ui has already changed the icon, HA state machine hasnā€™t yetā€¦

Very nice :slight_smile: I am only starting to learn all shis. It should be some place with lot of examples for each topic.

youā€™ve found it :wink: this Community is invaluable and the people are always prepared to help.

Iā€™m new to this as well (first post :slight_smile: ), sorry if this seems like a dump question.

 value_template: >
      {% if is_state('input_boolean.alarmclock_wd_enabled','on') %}
        {% if now().weekday() in [0,1,2,3] %}
          {% if now().time().strftime('%H:%M') < states('sensor.alarmclock_wd_time') %} 0
          {% else %} 1
          {% endif %}

        {% elif now().weekday() == 4 %}
          {% if is_state('input_boolean.alarmclock_we_enabled','on') %} 
            {% if now().time().strftime('%H:%M') < states('sensor.alarmclock_wd_time') %} 0
            {% else %} 1
            {% endif %}

Why are you checking the is_state('input_boolean.alarmclock_we_enabled','on') in every statement? Does this have to be checked every time? Normally, anything inside the first if-statement should only be there, if the state is on.
Again, this is a noob question, maybe thereā€™s a reason for. :slight_smile:

there might be a prettier way to do so, and I admit this is a verbose template. best hop over to Spot the error... nested template for this particular template.

just be precise, Im not checking for the same here, its all about weekdays alarms (wd) and weekend alarms (we)ā€¦on weekdays and weekend daysā€¦

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Another improvement is to create binary sensors for templates you use in more than one place. It only has to be evaluated once and the state changes are easy to implement in automations and quick to trigger.

yes, thanks, working on that now :wink: evaluating if that would be an improvement in my particular template. As a general rule, that is a thing to keep in mind indeed.

Is there a chance to customize domain or global icons depending of its state?

Is it necessary to have Cutom-UI and does below code will work?

homeassistant:
  customize_domain:
    light:
      icon: >-
        if (state === 'off') return 'mdi:lightbulb-outline';
        elif (state === 'unavailable') return 'mdi:lightbulb-off-outline';
        else return 'mdi:lightbulb'

Is there a chance also for background-color?