Get all AC units that have been on for some time

Configuration
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6

What I was trying to impress upon you is that “state not equal off” means the device is in one of its other modes ( fan_only, dry, cool, heat, heat_cool) but it doesn’t mean it is actively cooling (or heating).

So if your goal is to simply know when it’s “not off for 5 hours” then your template is fine. However, if you want to know when it’s “working for 5 hours”, then the template must be modified to check the value of attributes.hvac_action and not state.

The following Template Condition calculates the number of climate entities that are “not off for 5 hours” and checks if the quantity is greater than 0. The template’s result is a boolean value (true/false).

alias: example
trigger:
  - platform: time_pattern
    minutes: '/30'
condition:
  - condition: template
    value_template: >
      {% set ns = namespace(qty=0) %}
      {% for entity in states.climate | selectattr("state", "ne", "off") | map(attribute="entity_id") 
        if now() - states[entity].last_changed > timedelta(minutes=5) %}
      {% set ns.qty = ns.qty + 1 %}
      {% endfor %}
      {{ ns.qty > 0 }}
action:
  ... your actions ...