Hourly updating template sensors

Configuration
1

Hey there,
apparently I’m too stupid for a probably pretty simple line of code…
I am in the process of completing my energy monitoring setup, which works like a charm with Shelly Plugs, Shelly EM, InfluxDB and Grafana.

To include all loads in my household, I want to avoid installing physical meters for loads that are more or less constant eg. my networking equipment.

I set up a template sensor for that:

  - platform: template
    sensors:
      network_equipment_power:
        value_template: '{{ 26 }}'
        friendly_name: 'Stromverbrauch Netzwerkequipement'
        unit_of_measurement: 'W'

I read a lot of threads, but somehow couldn’t figure out the easiest way of updating the template sensor every hour.
Can someone give me a heads up whether to use the Sensor.time, now().hourly or something entirely different and how to implement the code in the template? Would be very much appreciated!

2

I’m not really sure why you want a template sensor that just updates from a manually entered constant but…

to do an hourly update you need to set up an automation that will use a time_pattern trigger set to trigger every hour.

then the action will run the homeassistant.update_entity service on the template sensor entity you created above.

1 Like
3

Thanks for the suggestion! My intention was to use to use this sensor to calculate the kWh like with the “real” sensors, so I can use ist side by side. If there is another way to do that, I am open to go down that route!

I tried the automation, it executes every hour:

2021-02-08 10:00:00 INFO (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.automation.template_sensor_uptade_jede_stunde] Template Sensor update jede Stunde: Running automation actions
2021-02-08 10:00:00 INFO (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.automation.template_sensor_uptade_jede_stunde] Template Sensor update jede Stunde: Executing step call service

So far so good. But somehow I can’t select any entities with the homeassistant.update_entity action. When I manually add the sensor to the automation (like shown below), it isn’t updated as well…still shows as unavailable… Any ideas?

alias: Template Sensor update jede Stunde
description: ''
trigger:
  - platform: time_pattern
    hours: '*'
condition: []
action:
  - service: homeassistant.update_entity
    data: {}
    entity_id: sensor.network_equipment_power
mode: single

grafik

If I manually reload the templates under server control it works:
grafik

4

Do you have a mqtt broker? You can make an automation like

alias: New Automation
description: ''
trigger:
  - platform: time_pattern
    hours: '*'
condition: []
action:
  - service: mqtt.publish
    data:
      topic: my/fixed/sensor
      payload: 26
mode: single

Then a sensor

sensor:

  - platform: mqtt
    name: "fixed"
    state_topic: "my/fixed/sensor"
    unit_of_measurement: "W"

This way you send an update to a sensor rather than poll a sensor that never updates.

1 Like
5

Thanks, the MQTT route seemed to have worked!

1 Like
6

I created the exact same template sensor as you and the same automation to update it and it’s been working fine for the last 24 hours.

The only small change I made was to use a “every hour” update (‘/1’) instead of the wild card match. That’s the recommendation I made above but you used the wildcard match instead.

Maybe that’s why yours isn’t working?

sensor:
  - platform: template
    sensors:
      network_equipment_power:
        value_template: '{{ 26 }}'
        friendly_name: 'Stromverbrauch Netzwerkequipement'
        unit_of_measurement: 'W'

automation:
  - alias: Template Sensor update jede Stunde
    description: ''
    trigger:
      - platform: time_pattern
        minutes: '/1'
    condition: []
    action:
      - service: homeassistant.update_entity
        data: {}
        entity_id: sensor.network_equipment_power
    mode: single

ex