Documentation proposal to show indefinite History_stats

Configuration
1

For a Home Assistant installation I wanted to display the total time a relay switch has been turned on, since the beginning.

Home Assistant provides the integration history_stats. On the documentation page it is mentioned, that it is possible to show all available history, and an example is showed:


sensor:
  - platform: history_stats
    name: Lamp ON today
    entity_id: light.my_lamp
    state: "on"
    type: time
    start: "{{ 0 }}"
    end: "{{ now() }}"

However, I noticed that my sensor was lowering even though time was going up and that it shouldn’t get lower. The reason for this is, that data of entities is only kept for 10 days by default based on the purge_keep_days value of the recorder integration. Therefore with above example it isn’t possible to add a sensor with all time history for an entity.

I therefore chose to apply following approach. I will create below history_stats
sensors and input field. I use an automation to fill the input field at 0:00:00 midnight with the value of the current template sensor hours_switch_on + the value of yesterday (which is then just turned yesterday).

sensor:
  - platform: template
    sensors:  
      hours_switch_on:
        friendly_name: "Hours turned on since beginning."
        unit_of_measurement: "h"
        value_template: "{{(states.sensor.hours_turned_on_today.state | float) + (states.input_number.value_untill_today.state | float ) | round(1)}}"
  - platform: history_stats
    name: hours_turned_on_today
    entity_id: switch.relay
    state: 'on'
    type: time
    start: "{{ now().replace(hour=0, minute=0, second=0) }}"
    end: '{{ now()}}'
 - platform: history_stats
    name: hours_turned_on_yesterday
    entity_id: switch.relay
    state: 'on'
    type: time
    end: "{{ now().replace(hour=0, minute=0, second=0) }}"
    duration:
        hours: 24

Input number field:

input_number:
  value_untill_today:
    name: Value untill today
    initial: 0
    min: 0
    step: 0.001
    mode: box

Automation:

- id: '1615465816435'
  alias: Refresh history input field
  description: ''
  trigger:
  - platform: time
    at: '0:00:00'
  condition: []
  action:
  - service: input_number.set_value
    data:
      value: '{{(states.sensor.hours_switch_on.state) | float + (states.sensor.hours_turned_on_yesterday.state | float)}}'
    entity_id: input_number.value_untill_today
  mode: single

I want to propose this change to the documentation. Would this be a preferred method or does any else have another way that’s better/more convenient?

2

There is a lot of stuff going to the HA db, it’s not really fit for long term history.

If you you want a long history, consider exporting your sensor values to something like influxdb.

See Using HA or HACS graphs w/ InfluxDB data in HA? for a related discussion

1 Like
3

I don’t know influxdb, and setting it up seems like it takes quite some steps. I have been running above solution for a while now, and for me it does the job. So I think I will propose it to the documentation. Currently the documentation mentions that is is possible to show all history by using:

start: "{{ 0 }}"
end: "{{ now() }}"

However that isn’t correct. So this question is not about a way to do it, it is to ask opinions on whether this is a good idea to add to the documentation.

4

Well, it shows all available history.
If you actually want to keep the whole history, just set auto_purge to false Recorder - Home Assistant

10 days is just the default value.

But expect the HA db to grow absurdly large, and maybe performance issues.

5

This is what the doc is mentioning:

image

As the purge_keep_days value is set to 10 days, there can be confusion for users as they read this and aren’t aware that they won’t get the desired result. And as you said, when disabling purging, performance issues can be expected. So that is not an option for showing all your data. I am sure using influxdb is a good solution, however I prefer something more simple.