How to set te scan interval in configuration.yaml

Configuration
1

This is driving me crazy! HOW do you pass a setting of the scan interval of a resful sensor to the configuration settings?

I’ve tried everything, but the only thing that work is:

scan_interval: 7200 #seconds
scan_interval: "02:00:00" # HH:MM:SS format as requested in error code

In the Template Editor I made this template:

{{states('input_select.xau_api_update')}}

This renders exactly the same value as the hard-coded “02:00:00”; I put it behind the scan_interval in the YAML in the following forms:

scan_interval: {{states('input_select.xau_api_update')}}
scan_interval: "{{states('input_select.xau_api_update')}}"

…but to no avail.

I’ve also tried numerical inputs with the seconds value; that didn’t work either although the Tempate Editor rendered perfectly good numerical values.

Any help on how I can debug this is welcome.

2

You can’t. scan_interval expects an integer, and a template isn’t an integer (docs).

image

You could set a long interval, and use an automation to force an update at whatever frequency you want:

  action:
    - service: homeassistant.update_entity
      target:
        entity_id: sensor.your_sensor_id
3

Thanks!
I more or less feared that answer, because the probably the configuration.yaml doesn’t update as a value changes and apparently doesn’t pass a template to the service to do so, either…
The strange thing is however that it also accepts a string, formatted “HH:MM:SS”; this was indicated in the debug info.

I know the service update “trick” via an automation works, but I thought I’d try to dynamically change the service parms, because then there’s no need for extra automations. Alas, we’ll have to do with that solution.

4

If the option does not explicitly state that it accepts templates then it doesn’t.

5

Where can be found what options accept as value types? I’ve been looking for that but couldn’t find it.

6

Any of the documentation pages. For example, in the link I provided above:

image

1 Like
7

Thanks! I used the long scan_interval solution with an automation requesting updates when appropriate. But then I ran into the problem that the service is called at least once after a restart. Of course, this is fine if it weren’t for the limited number of free API-calls: 500/month. For that, I found the following solution:

In the secrets.yaml I coded this:

gold_api_key: >
    {% if now().isoweekday() < 5 %}
      {{'goldapi-xxxVALID KEYxxx-io'}}
    {%else%}
      {{'goldapi-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-io'}}
    {%endif%}

This prevents access to the API in the weekend, when I work on the HA coding and the exchange is closed anyway :slight_smile: