How to activate GPIO pin before sunset?

Configuration
1

Hi all,

I’m trying to activate a GPIO pin 1 hour before sunset. I’m banging my head without results, and there’s nothing in the docs that illustrates this :frowning:

I have a relay connected to GPIO 4 on the raspberry where Hass is running. Here’s my configuration file:

# Configure the GPIO pins
switch:
  - platform: rpi_gpio
    ports:
      04: Livingroom_lamp

After reading some posts I came up with the automation file below but then Hass reboots in safe mode and throws all kind of errors saying that it doesn’t understand the file.


- alias: Living room lamp on
  trigger:
    platform: sun
    event: sunset
    offset: '-01:00:00'
  action:
    - service: switch.turn_on
      entity_id: switch.Livingroom_lamp

- alias: Living room off at 11PM
  trigger:
    platform: time
    at: 23:00
   
  action:
    - service: switch.turn_off
      entity_id: switch.Livingroom_lamp

Can anybody help me with an automation file to turn GPIO 04 on 1 hour before sunset and off at 11PM?

Thanks beforehand!

2

Without digging too deep into this, I can see at least one syntax error. The entity id Livingroom_lamp has a capitalized L. Try replacing Livingroom_lamp with livingroom_lamp and try it again. Then, if you want to see “Living-room Lamp” in your dashboard, just add the friendly_name: field to your switch config.

Capital letters (and whitespace) in names is generally a no-no when it comes to yaml. The exception being fields where HA parses the variable name (like friendly_name: and alias:). So “Living room off at 11PM” works, because HA will automagically convert the alias: field, and internally refer to it as living_room_off_at_11pm. However, HA does not parse the entity_id: field. So any capitals there will result in invalid yaml.

Also, I recommend always using the configuration checker button before rebooting. It can save you from major headaches.

3

you want debugging yet you get errors which you don’t show.

4

Hi, thanks for helping out.

I changed the yaml files omitting all caps, and everything works fine now!