How to manually set state/value of sensor?

[petro]

template entities restore state, so it will only be unknown when you build it the first time. Restarting will cause it to restore a state. Reloading it will flop back to unknown.

FYI, simplified.

template:
  - trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: binary_sensor.vibration_xyz
        id: "sensor"
      - platform: state
        entity_id: binary_sensor.cover_xyz
        to: "on"
        for: "00:30:00"
        id: "stuck"
    binary_sensor:
      - name: "Cover XYZ"
        # entity_id: binary_sensor.cover_xyz
        unique_id: bliblablub
        device_class: opening
        delay_off:
          seconds: 1
        state: >
          {{ trigger.id == "sensor" and state_attr('binary_sensor.vibration_xyz', 'orientation')[2] > -70 }}
        availability: "{{ 'binary_sensor.vibration_xyz' | has_value }}"
        auto_off:
          minutes: 30

[e-raser]

First: thanks for optimizing things, much easier to read now

Ahm that’s definitely a new behaviour.

• I use several hundreds of template sensors and I did not see that with the old template sensor definition (without the newly added trigger part), I could reload template sensors as often I want, it always had it’s correct value directly and never was unknown.
• And I also did not build it for the first time, keeping the UID the sensor is well known to the state machine already, basically only the trigger part was added.

Old definition (only state part):

#        state: >
#          {% if (state_attr('binary_sensor.vibration_xyz', 'orientation') [2]) | int(0) > -70 %}
#            {{ 'on' }}
#          {% else %}
#            {{ 'off' }}
#          {% endif %}

Any recommendations?

Either that’s a bug with trigger based template entities or I need to somehow work around that (which leads back to the original question: “how to manually set state/value of sensor?” as I have a monitoring system reporting unknown and unavailable entities. Simply suppressing the warning for this template sensor is just the last resort. I think I really want to set the state correctly when reloading/initializing the template sensor. Like it always did.

[petro]

@e-raser

Ahm that’s definitely a new behaviour.

No it’s not. This behavior has always existed for trigger based template entities.

[e-raser]

That’s what I’m talking about. In plain text: this is the first time I use trigger based template entities.

…and I really don’t like that unknown state behaviour. Why? It has all information to render the actual state. I guess it simply waits for one of the triggers to actually…well, trigger - in this two trigger case for a state change of the input sensor. Somehow logical.

So how can I motivate the sensor to leave its unknown state? Thinking bout a fix-automation like “when sensor switches to unknown, do ”.
If I could set an entities state, I’d read the input sensor’s state and simply set the same once again, hoping this will trigger the trigger based template sensor to render fine. Aaaaaaah well everything get’s so complicated under the hood, doesn’t it.

Well, at least the “stuck” trigger is working, tested after 30 minutes now. So I swapped one deficiency (stuck sensor) with a new issue (unknown sensor).

---

Update:

Forget it. After reloading the sensor two more times (after applying the state and availability template optimizations of petro), there’s now unknown state anymore. Seems to work, hopefully

[petro]

@e-raser

Why? It has all information to render the actual state

It does not, because you aren’t providing triggers for it.

Trigger based template entities only update when a trigger occurs. You don’t have a trigger for when it reloads, you don’t have a trigger for when you restart. So it gets assigned an unknown state when either of those things occur.

[e-raser]

(FYI: I updated my previous post)
Just to learn another thing: what does a trigger for

• reload
• restart

look like?

  - trigger:
      - platform: homeassistant
        event: start
      - ...

I’m only aware of automation reload event. Template entities reload event?

[petro]

Event_template_reloaded not updating sensor

Since the recent updates I’ve been having the issue for some of my template sensor that they stay unknown for a long time since the triggers are rare. The preferred solution apparently is to listen for home assistant restarts and template reloads, but for some reason this doesn’t work for me. Actually, I’ve had it work for one sensor, but that is about it and it wouldn’t always work. I’m mystified as to why. See below for my simplest example. - trigger: - platform: state entity_id: perso…

[Ben82cgn]

Hello,
i added the Attribute “last_room” to my person.ben
how can i set the room/area with states('sensor.ben_iphone_ble_area') to my person.ben ?

configuration.yaml:

homeassistant:
  customize_domain:
    person:
      last_room: ""

I Hope someone can help me… thx

[Ben82cgn]

now i can set the attribute “last_room” to person.ben but after some seconds the attribute “last_room” get deleted. Is there any way to store the attribute permanent ?

action: python_script.exec
data:
  file: python_scripts/set_state.py
  entity_id: person.ben
  last_room: "TEST"

[Ben82cgn]

i try another way with customize.yaml:
But states not working in customize?

customize:
  person.ben:
    last_room: {{ states('sensor.ben_iphone_ble_area') }}

[ColtonYYZ]

If I could piggyback from this, hope you don’t mind.

I have Midea Integration installed and one of the entities available is:

binary_sensor.141837000261236_full_dust

I can manually change the state in the Developers tab under states, but it seems to only change it in Hass for a few seconds and then reverts back to the state the unit is displaying.

How can I get Hass to change the state on the AC Unit so that I can use that in an automation for when I clean the filter, I can simply use Hass to turn off the alert; rather than having to load the MIdea SmartHome App to do it? Isn’t this possible?

[petro]

@ColtonYYZ

I can manually change the state in the Developers tab under states, but it seems to only change it in Hass for a few seconds and then reverts back to the state the unit is displaying.

That means the state is coming from the unit. I’m not familiar with this device but I’d wager you just need to wait for it to report that it’s “not full of dust”.

[ColtonYYZ]

Okay. Well for now I will just use my IR gateway and see if I can control it that way. I hope the integration opens up this functionality but I am not holding my breathe. LOL Thanks for your response!

[teskanoo]

Pretty sure you can only change the ‘full of dust’ state of both the Midea and the state it stores in home assistant by physically removing the dust.

Once done, you may have to ‘turn-it-off-and-on-again’ to force the Midea to check just how dusty it still is

[ColtonYYZ]

Ya, I tried both waiting to see if it sees that it’s clear, to clear that alert on its own, but also turned it off/on several times yesterday trying to get my IR Gateway programmed (which doesn’t have the option to clear the alert).

It looks like I’m stuck having to go into the Midea SmartHome App every time to clear the alert. Sucks!!

[teskanoo]

Hi Colton, just out of curiosity, which of the various Midea integrations are you using

[ColtonYYZ]

I have them both installed LOL. At one point, one would work and the other didn’t. Then it flipped. So I kept both installed just in case one stops working. Haha

[firstcolle]

Hi,
sometimes the garage door sensor doesn’t detect when it closes and stays set to “open,” even though it’s actually closed. I saw that through the developer tools I can force the state to “closed” (off), and the sensor stays in this state until the next opening.
Now, I would like to set up a button that changes the state to “off” when necessary.

I tried with the script described here, but unfortunately, it doesn’t work.
The script is installed correctly because I can see it among the action options, but I can’t get the button to work. Here is the code:

type: button
entity: input_button.finto
tap_action:
 action: python_script.set_state
 data:
   entity_id: binary_sensor.box_porta
   state: "off"

Has something perhaps changed with the latest versions of HA?

EDIT:
with this code it works:

tap_action:
  action: perform-action
  perform_action: python_script.set_state
  data:
    entity_id: binary_sensor.box_porta
    state: "off"

[Mariusthvdb (Marius)]

@firstcolle

sometimes the garage door sensor doesn’t detect when it closes and stays set to “open,” even though it’s actually closed.

sorry for the off topic here, but replying to your specific Garage door issue:
my Somfy does the same, and it has to do with delays in the communication in various directions… what you can do is close it again, and it will immediately show the right state?

seems using this python script isnt the right approach for the issue you have.

[sh00t2kill]

I stumbled across this thread many moons ago, and used the python script for a while.

As others have said on this thread, if you are manually setting the state of a sensor, you are almost certainly fixing a symptom (hey my thing doesnt always update when it should) and not a problem.

It works, it does what it says on the box, but its just not the right way to do it. In almost every case, a template will be more robust.