In the triggers section of the automation editor, use the “Trigger Type” pull down menu to select Numeric State.
I understand that I have to use Numeric State but there is no anything like:
IF entity1 > entity2
There’s only something like:
IF entity1 > NUMBER or < NUMBER
as screenshot shows.
You can enter the entity_id of the second entity in the Above or Below fields.
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Ahhhh… that makes sense. And a lot of difference 
Thank you very much for your reply. I wasn’t aware of that. Will try that.
However - is it possible to do in editor something like this:
IF entity1 > entity2 + 2
Meaning if entity1 > entity2 value but plus 2 to it’s value (for example of course)
Or something like:
IF entity1-5 < entity2
Yes, you can modify the state that is being compared (Entity 1) using the Value template field. For your example you would use:
{{ float(state.state) - 2 }}
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You’re the boss here. Thank you!
Seems like I’m doing something wrong here. I tried this but this gives me an error:
platform: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature
below: '{{ float(sensor.outdoor_temperature) + 1 }}'
OK - I get it. I cannot do it in automation itself but under Developer options in Template. Still however it throwns an error like this.
ValueError: Template error: float got invalid input 'numeric_sensor.outdoor_temperature' when rendering template '{{ float('numeric_sensor.outdoor_temperature') }}' but no default was specified
OK - after putting this in Developer Tools → Template it says config is OK and shows calculated temperatures:
sensor:
- platform: template
sensors:
office_temp+1:
friendly_name: "Office temp + 1"
value_template: "{{(states('sensor.oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature')|float) + 1}}"
sensor:
- platform: template
sensors:
office_temp-1:
friendly_name: "Office temp - 1"
value_template: "{{(states('sensor.oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature')|float) - 1}}"
And result it shows:
sensor:
- platform: template
sensors:
office_temp+1:
friendly_name: "Office temp + 1"
value_template: "24.7"
sensor:
- platform: template
sensors:
office_temp-1:
friendly_name: "Office temp - 1"
value_template: "22.7"
However when I’m trying to put into configuration.yaml I got this:
nvalid config for [sensor.template]: invalid slug office_temp+1 (try office_temp_1) for dictionary value @ data['sensors']. Got OrderedDict([('office_temp+1', OrderedDict([('friendly_name', 'Office temp + 1'), ('value_template', "{{(states('sensor.oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature')|float) + 1}}")]))]). (See ?, line ?).
Invalid config for [sensor.template]: invalid slug office_temp-1 (try office_temp_1) for dictionary value @ data['sensors']. Got OrderedDict([('office_temp-1', OrderedDict([('friendly_name', 'Office temp - 1'), ('value_template', "{{(states('sensor.oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature')|float) - 1}}")]))]). (See ?, line ?).
It’s telling you what to do: you can’t use office_temp-1: so it’s suggesting office_temp_1:.
You CAN do it in the automation. The trigger below fires when the "fr. porch temperature" changes to 2 or more degrees above the "living room temperature".
'{{ float(state.state) }}' is referencing a variable, state, created inside the Numeric state trigger. What you typed,
'{{ float('numeric_sensor.outdoor_temperature') }}', is not the same as '{{ float(state.state) }}'.
I should have included a default in my earlier example, but it would have obscured the issue, not solved it… The template with a default can be written either '{{ float(state.state, 0) }}' or {{ state.state | float(0) }}.
The object id of an entity must be a slug… it cannot contain capital letters, spaces, or any punctuation marks other than _.
office_temp+1 and office_temp-1 are not valid slugs, so you cannot use them as the object ids for your sensors. If you want to use template sensors instead of doing it in the automation trigger, use something like office_temp_plus_1 and office_temp_minus_1.
Also, as of 2022.6, defaults for filters like float must be declared. See this post for details on how to apply them.
WORKS!!!
Thank you very much. I did it just in editor just as you showed me and it works!
Thanks again
Seems like for any reason automation stopped working. Yet yesterday it was working fine. Code was like this:
platform: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature
value_template: '{{ state.state|float(0) - 1 }}'
below: sensor.outdoor_temperature
However I got many false possitive automation starts because sometimes temperature entity is missing it value for few seconds and automation starts. That’s why yesterday I added this to my code and it stopped working completelly:
platform: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature
value_template: '{{ state.state|float(0) - 1 }}'
below: sensor.outdoor_temperature
for:
hours: 0
minutes: 1
seconds: 0
Is FOR cannot be used in such automation? And if - why?
What’s more when I’m trying to test this code in Developer Tools → Templates I got error like this (doesn’t matter if this FOR is included or not):
UndefinedError: 'state' is undefined
Actually there’s second question I have realted to this problem. To measure temperature in my room I simply use Xiaomi purifier. It reads data from Xiaomi cloud every 30 seconds and that’s works very well. However - if I unplug purifier from power then after 30 seconds all entities values related to purifier got value UNKNOWN. Same thing happens randomly sometimes if HA fails to read values from cloud in time. Why HA cannot just use “last known value” if it fails to read it from actual device? Can this be configured somehow?
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Yes, you can use for: with Numeric State triggers.
The variable state. is a referential variable for the state object of the entity targeted by the trigger. It doen’t exist to be tested in the Developer tools. For testing purposes, you can use states.sensor.oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature.state in Developer Tools.
With all these connection and loading issues it might be easier to just use a template trigger so you can filter out non-numeric states:
trigger:
- platform: template
value_template: >
{% if states('sensor.oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature') | float('unknown') is number and states('sensor.outdoor_temperature') |float('unknown') is number %}
{{ states('sensor.oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature') | float(0) - 1 < states('sensor.outdoor_temperature') |float(0) }}
{% else %}
false
{% endif %}
OK guys - I’ve figured out why it’s not working.
There are two temperatures here:
- OUTSIDE TEMP
- ROOM TEMP
And we have two automations for this
First:
platform: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature
value_template: '{{ state.state|float(0) - 1 }}'
below: sensor.outdoor_temperature
for:
hours: 0
minutes: 1
seconds: 0
and second:
platform: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature
value_template: '{{ state.state|float(0) - 1 }}'
above: sensor.outdoor_temperature
for:
hours: 0
minutes: 1
seconds: 0
Of course this are only triggers for those two automations - not whole automiation but that doesn’t matter. Problem is with trigger.
Thing is when I was testing those automations I used Developer Tools → States and was changing state of ROOM TEMP (here as oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature). And it worked
But… I was blindly assuming that this part:
platform: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature
value_template: '{{ state.state|float(0) - 1 }}'
above: sensor.outdoor_temperature
Will trigger automation whenever oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature will change or outdoor_temperature will change. In reality tho this trigger is based on checking of oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature AGAINST outdoor_temperature so it will not trigger if outdoor_temperature will change. It will only trigger when oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature will change.
Now let’s look at some graph, shall we:
(this peak at the end of chart is a result of testing via changing entity value manually - ignore it)
As you can see here ROOM TEMP barely change while OUTSIDE TEMP change a lot. So to make this automation work I have to compare outdoor_temperature AGAINST oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature. Not the other way around. Because while it is at is is this automation will trigger only when oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature will change (and all other conditions are met as well). So my automation have to look like this:
platform: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.outdoor_temperature
value_template: '{{ state.state|float(0) - 1 }}'
below: sensor.oczyszczacz_powietrza_biuro_temperature
THEN SOMETHING… doesn’t matter what.
Maybe it will help other people in feature.
COMPARISION: Making trigger based on IF A > B won’t run if B has changed it’s value but not A. It will only run if A has changed it’s value.
Other thing is “why do I even care about opening / closing window during summer if it doesn’t affect room temperature in the manner of cooling it”. Well - it actually doesn’t as I see it now on the graph but there’s sollution for that. Simple fan mounted in the wall in the ventilation flue (ventilation vent chimney) will do the job. It will start based on HA automations sucking air from room outside. Because opened window is the only source of fresh air it will speed up sucking cool air from window. Simple.
For example my room has 22 cubic meters while such fan can transfer 100 cubic meters of air per hour. So if it starts when temp. in room is higher than temp outside and window is opened (checked by ZIGBEE sensor) then it will force air movement from window - across the room - to chimney up to the roof. When temperatures will change or window will be closed fan will power off. Simple as that. Additionally HA will tell me (based on temperatures differences) when to open / close window and will automatically start fan based on that.
Hope this explanation is clear.
I didn’t mount this fan yet but will do in upcomming days. Will let you know about results if someone is interested. Will connect it to some ZIGBEE plug and automate all this as desribed above. Should actually cool down my room very quick once temperature outside will be lower than temperature in room. For now as you see opening window does almost nothing.
Jakub, you are correct… In the Numeric State trigger the relationship between the two sensors is only re-evaluated when the sensor named under the entity_id variable changes.
However, in addition to handling the unknown and unavailable sensor problem, the template variable that I posted will be re-evaluted whenever either of the two sensors change.
EDIT: I missed the fact that you had switched the above to below on first reading.
However, in addition to handling the unknown and unavailable sensor problem, the template variable that I posted will be re-evaluted whenever either of the two sensors change.
Oh really? That makes A LOT of sense. I will try that as well. As for now I just changed below and above and also changed -1 to +1 because now it works the opposite way. But yes - thanks for being alerted and mentioning this fact. Someone could actually miss this.
However now at least know how it works. Actually I was even thinking about it when I was doing this automation. “Does it compare both values against each other or only first against second”. But I thought then “Well… it says if A > B so it has to compare both I guess”. Clearly I was mistaken. It compares first against second while the first one change value. Now I get it.
P.S. Which answer in this entire threat should I mark as "SOLLUTION’ now? xD
I’m apparently not bright enough to have followed all of this well enough that I tried this a few times but ended up just doing it in node red instead. I’m not great at node red but it was way too easy and had my notifications going in a few minutes.
What does this look like in visual editor? I can’t quite get there
