Get string value from input_datetime

Configuration
1

I followed this link (changed to Google backend) to set up Sonos TTS:

I setup this automation:

alias: Sleep_tobeupdated
description: ''
trigger:
  - platform: time
    at: input_datetime.time_sleep
condition: []
action:
  - service: input_boolean.turn_on
    data: {}
    entity_id: input_boolean.is_sleeping
  - service: light.turn_on
    entity_id: light.all_lights
    data: {}
  - service: input_boolean.turn_on
    data: {}
    entity_id: input_boolean.is_home
  - service: script.sonos_say
    data:
      sonos_entity: media_player.library
      volume: 0.3
      message: {{"You have set wake up time to be " ~ states.input_datetime.time_wake.attributes.hour ~ ":" ~states.input_datetime.time_wake.attributes.minute}}
      delay: '00:00:10'
mode: single

When I run the script, it reads out “object object none” from my Sonos speaker. “message” is sometimes automatically changed by system to be something like this (from my memory, I cannot reproduce it):

message:
  [object][object]: None

In other times, it is automatically changed to Null

When I use the Template editor from Developer, the text is correct and string value is returned:

p1
p11326Ă—463 37.5 KB

I feel that value_template may be the way to go, but I consulted the official documentation on Templating and there is no example for such use case.

Thanks. Revan

2

Add single quotes outside of the two curly brackets at the beginning and the end of your template:

message: '{{"You have set wake up time to be " ~ states.input_datetime.time_wake.attributes.hour ~ ":" ~states.input_datetime.time_wake.attributes.minute}}'
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4

Except that he’s triggering on a different input_datetime than the one used in the measage.

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5

Many thanks, this does the trick! I actually tried a double quotation mark before, which did not work.

6

You need to have either single quotes outside the curly brackets and double quotes inside the curly brackets or vice versa.

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7

Why are you combining the hour and minute attributes, from input_datetime.time_wake, when you can get the time directly from its state?

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8

@Revan_Ng - here’s the doc info on the quotes and how to use them in templates. My MO is to always start the template on the next line so I don’t get bitten by incorrect quotes - that’s at least one less thing I need to worry about :wink:

Automation Templating - Home Assistant (home-assistant.io)

This has some other good info on using templates in automations - specifically how to use the trigger state object. I find it to be very useful.

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