It's all about time, which we have plenty of

Configuration
1

Because I am now working from home I have created a time set up in lovelace which looks like this.
Screenshot from 2020-04-13 14-51-43

I have used the following to code as a sensor.

  - platform: worldclock
    name: New York
    time_zone: America/New_York
  - platform: worldclock
    name: Waukesha
    time_zone: America/Chicago
  - platform: worldclock
    name: Phoenix
    time_zone: America/Phoenix
  - platform: worldclock
    name: Los Angeles
    time_zone: America/Los_Angeles

and this is my lovelace

  - type: horizontal-stack
    title: Times
    cards:
      - type: glance
        entities:
          - sensor.new_york
          - sensor.waukesha
          - sensor.phoenix   
          - sensor.los_angeles

I have tried many methods on the forum to change these times to a 12 hr format in my template.
I can change them but they do not update, or my code changes all of them to the same time.
Here is a sample of what I have tried.

      simple_time_ny:
        friendly_name: 'New York Time'
        entity_id: sensor.new_york
        value_template: '{{ as_timestamp(now()) | timestamp_custom("%I:%M %p") }}'

Does any one have a solution to make all the times in three different time zones to go to a 12hr format and update.
Thanks,
carltonb

2 Likes
2

it didn’t show you NY time as you used now(), it’s local time.

I think you need to keep your World Clock sensors and create some template sensors that will use their state to represent it in 12h format. Here I created 2 sensors so you get the idea and add as many as you like:

- platform: template
  sensors:
    simple_time_ny:
      friendly_name: 'New York'
      <<: &icon
        icon_template: 'mdi:clock'
      value_template: >
        {% set time = states('sensor.new_york') %}
        {% set hour = time[:2]|int %}
        {{ '{:02d}:{} {}'.format(hour % 12, time[3:5], 'PM' if hour>11 else 'AM') }}

    simple_time_la:
      friendly_name: 'Los Angeles'
      <<: *icon
      value_template: >
        {% set time = states('sensor.los_angeles') %}
        {% set hour = time[:2]|int %}
        {{ '{:02d}:{} {}'.format(hour % 12, time[3:5], 'PM' if hour>11 else 'AM') }}

You’ll need to change your Lovelace card to use these sensors:

- type: horizontal-stack
  title: Times
  cards:
    - type: glance
      entities:
        - sensor.simple_time_ny
        - sensor.simple_time_la
3

Firstly thank you for the reply. I enabled the code and it works sort of. But not understanding your code (if you could explain please the last two lines of the value template that would help me out) I did not know how to fix it.

   {% set hour = time[:2]|int %}
    {{ '{:02d}:{} {}'.format(hour % 12, time[3:5], 'PM' if hour>11 else 'AM') }}

What is happening is that from 12:00 PM to 12:59 PM the display reads for 12:25 PM (00:25 PM).
As I said I do not fully understand the code.
Thank you.
carltonb

4

{% set hour = time[:2]|int %} assigns the first 2 characters (cast to int) of the original sensors’ state string to hour variable
the next string composes the template sensor’s state:

  • first field (0-padded 2 characters) will be hour in 12h format (i.e remainder of hour / 12)
  • second field (after colon) is 2 characters starting from #3 of your original sensor’s state string - minutes (we don’t change them)
  • the third field displays PM if hour > 11 and AM otherwise.

If you’re saying it doesn’t work correctly between 12:00 PM to 12:59 PM that’s correct, this should fix it:

{{ '{:02d}:{} {}'.format(hour if hour == 12 else hour % 12, time[3:5], 'PM' if hour>11 else 'AM') }}

i.e hour == 12 is a special case, we need to display the hour itself, not hour % 12 (=00).

hope it does the trick.
basically it’s Python: slicing and string formatting (+ a bit of Jinja templates)

5

Your explanation was great and the small changes worked. I now for the most part understand what you did.
Thank you so much for helping me.

1 Like
6

Has anyone noticed that since 0.115 the sensors created using these templates no longer auto update?
I have the following sensor:

- platform: template
  sensors:
    simple_time:
      friendly_name: "Simple Time"
      entity_id: sensor.time
      value_template: "{{ as_timestamp(now()) | timestamp_custom('%I:%M %p') }}"

It only updates once upon HA restart and then it sits there. I guess i can rename it to “Time HA booted up” :joy:

7

In 0.115.x, the entity_id is not used anymore, and since the value_template has no entity to listen to, it is not updated. There is a whole topic on that change.

8

to fix…

- platform: template
  sensors:
    simple_time:
      friendly_name: "Simple Time"
      value_template: >
       {% set t = states('sensor.time') %}
       {{ as_timestamp(now()) | timestamp_custom('%I:%M %p') }}"
1 Like
9

Thank you for the example. This will make it easy to find other places that are broken and implement a similar solution. This should be used as an example in that topic :slight_smile:

10

I think it is but that topic is so long now that it’s just buried.