Garage Door "Cover"

Hi,

I’m trying to get a garage door opener/closer defined as a binary sensor so i can use whether or not it’s open or closed in some automations. It’s defined as a “cover” I believe because of being able to trigger it as open or closed. The history does show open/closed states, but I assume it has to be a binary.sensor for this to work?

Not at all, you can use the state of any entity.

condition:
  - condition: state
    entity_id: cover.whale_bay_doors
    state: 'open'
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I guess I am still confused. I currently have a group defind of other door open/closed inputs, yet the garage door does not show up when I try to add it to this dialog. I assume that’s because it’s not natively a binary sensor?

It is a cover, not a binary_sensor. Look in states in developer tools. In “Filter entities” type cover. There will be a list of your cover entites.

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Yes I realize that. I was trying to figure out how to include it in my group with the others…that was the whole point of my question. I basically was trying to create one boolean entity that would “or” all my door opened/closed statuses.

I would suggest to use the condition that @Tinkerer suggested in an automation. If you are dead set on having a binary_sensor, you could create one in your config using a template. But your syntax to check the state of it would be very similar to checking the state of the cover, so it’s not really going to buy you anything to create a sensor.

I see where you are going with this. You want to create a template sensor if you are combining different types of entities. I did something sorta kinda similar with the state of all of my door locks. I wanted one overall sensor that tells me if all doors or locked, or if any door is unlocked. Here is my template:

    lock_sensor:
      friendly_name: "Lock Sensor"
      value_template: >-
        {% if is_state('lock.front_door', 'locked') and is_state('lock.back_door', 'locked') and is_state('lock.kitchen_door', 'locked') %}
          locked
        {% elif is_state('lock.front_door', 'unlocked') or is_state('lock.back_door', 'unlocked') or is_state('lock.kitchen_door', 'unlocked') %}
          unlocked
        {% elif is_state('lock.front_door', 'locking') or is_state('lock.back_door', 'locking') or is_state('lock.kitchen_door', 'locking') %}
          locking
        {% elif is_state('lock.front_door', 'unlocking') or is_state('lock.back_door', 'unlocking') or is_state('lock.kitchen_door', 'unlocking') %}
          unlocking
        {% else %}
          unknown
        {% endif %}

Yeah thanks. I thought maybe given the data is there it would be easier instead of having to muck with a template or things, but if that’s how it is, that’s how it is.

Are the other entities in the group covers or binary_sensors?