Is there a way to speed up local polling for a Folder sensor?

Configuration
1

Perhaps there’s another way to accomplish what I’m trying to do.

When we press a button on our tablet, it fires a script that tells one of our cameras to capture an image. That image is then saved to a local/images/etc folder for which we have a sensor to provide a count of files in that folder.

There are a few checks along the way:

  1. Is the camera on? If not, don’t try to take a picture, just play a sound to let us know.
  2. Did the camera successfully take a picture, and did the file get saved to the right folder? If so, play a sound.

That’s where we get stuck. The sensor that counts the files has a relatively significant delay, so confirmation that an image was captured takes a while.

What other way could we confirm that a picture was actually saved to the folder? We’re trying to avoid phone notifications, but could resort to that if needed.

2

Display the latest picture using the camera file platform?

3

While this could serve a purpose, I’ll expound upon what I’m doing:

  • Wife is pregnant, so she stands at the camera twice per day and snaps a photo using the
    ESP32CAM, which writes the file to /local/images/camera2/baby_bump_time_lapse/

  • Each photo is incremented and named as such baby_bump_01..02..03.... The increment is derived from a file count of that folder.

  • An automation is triggered if the state of the folder sensor increases based upon the count, which is independent of the count in NodeRED.

In NodeRED, I use a node to count the number of results in an array and pass that value, do a little math, and increment the file count when the image is written.

I could probably write some sort of logic that compares values in NodeRED, but I chose to just create a folder sensor in the config.yaml. The NodeRED node is updated when called…but the folder sensor has a delay.

Any ideas?

4

It sounds like the folder watcher integration is a better option for you than the folder sensor. The sensor polls once a minute, whereas the watcher should be near real-time:

5

Not sure how the Folder Watcher makes itself evident once it’s configured. It’s not a sensor, right?

Where is the information on the events going?

6

The documentation for folder_watcher ends with a full yaml example how to trigger action on the events that the integration creates.

7

I was thinking in terms of sensors. So I’ll need to keep my sensors alive, but this watcher allows me to filter events in NodeRED with the purpose of being a trigger. Brilliant.