Need some help with automation!

Configuration
1

I have a simple automation that should turn on a switch(code is below). I have tried this so many ways but cannot get it to work at all. I am executing this manually through the automation editor and it executes, but the switch is not turning on. I can manually call the service service swith.turn_on which works fine. I have tried adding the entity ID of the switch(entity_id: switch.welle_garage) however I cannot seem to even get the proper syntax so save the changes. Any ideas? I know the automation is working because I put a push notification in the action and that gets triggered.

  • alias: Garage Door is closed!
    trigger:
    platform: time
    at: “20:32:00”
    condition:
    condition: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.welle_garage_door
    state: ‘off’ # off means closed and on means open
    action:
    • service: switch.turn_on
    • delay: 500 ms
    • service: switch.turn_off
2

Hard to comment because your code as it appears here has no formatting. Can you post a screenshot or something? Otherwise you can use a code block - see section 11 here.

3

Ahhh, sorry about that, thank you. Here is my formatted code

  - alias: Garage Door is closed!
    trigger:
      platform: time
      at: "20:32:00"
    condition:
      condition: state
      entity_id: binary_sensor.welle_garage_door
      state: 'off' # off means closed and on means open
    action:
      - service: switch.turn_on
      - delay: 500 ms
      - service: switch.turn_off
4

My automations are all created through Configuration in HA. When I look at them in automations.yaml I notice that they all have times enclosed in single quotes. Does that make any difference?

5

You are missing the entity_id for the turn on and turn off services.

1 Like
6

I don’t think it matters whether I use double quotes or single quotes. I know the automation is getting triggered under the condition, because if I replace the action of the switch.on service to a push notification, I get the push notification. So it is something with the switch action.

7 
    action:
      - service: switch.turn_on
        entity_id: switch.your_switch_here   ### <----
      - delay: 500 ms
      - service: switch.turn_off
        entity_id: switch.your_switch_here   ### <----
8

OMG, I swear I tried everything! Thank you Tom_I, that did the trick! This YAML stuff is very finicky, the compile errors don’t seem to help me that much. Hopefully I will pick it up at some point.

9

If you call a service to turn something on or off you have to specify which device(s).

You’re lucky, the default behaviour until recently if nothing was specified was to turn everything on/off.

10

Well that makes sense then. Because I know I had this working at one point, I have it shutting my garage door if it is open past 22:00:00. I only have one switch so that is not a problem, but now I know you have to specify. Thanks!

1 Like
11

Ah I see. Yes that makes sense. Though this behaviour was not introduced recently it was actually in v0.103 in December last year. My, how time flies.