So I have a Nest Thermostat, which was purchased before the Works with Nest API was shutdown.
As it is still working well with Home Assistant and it looks good, i’m happy to keep it for now, however, one think that has always bugged me was the fact that there was no “Boost Mode” which would turn the heating on for a certain period of time.
So I decided to make one in Home Assistant, and after using it for most of the winter, I thought I would share it with you all.
My script (should hopefully be quite self explanatory with the comments) works as follows:
Takes the current Nest target temp and saves it in an input_number
Creates a Boost target temp based on the current temperature + 1 (this is so if the turn off automation fails, it doesn’t cook us alive) and saves it in another input_number
Sets the Nest thermostat to the new Boost target temp
Waits until the Nest thermostat and the Boost target temp match (cancels after 30 secs if this fails)
Turns on an input_boolean which indicates that the Boost mode is active
Waits for a set amount of time before the script will finish
## SCRIPTS ##
script:
# Heating Boost Script
heating_boost:
alias: 'Heating Boost'
sequence:
# Save the current target temperature as previous target temperature
- service: input_number.set_value
data_template:
entity_id: input_number.previous_target
value: "{{ states('sensor.living_room_thermostat_target') }}"
# Save the new target as boost target temperature
- service: input_number.set_value
data_template:
entity_id: input_number.boost_target
value: "{{ states('sensor.living_room_thermostat_temperature') | float + 1 }}"
# Set the thermostat to match boost target
- service: climate.set_temperature
data_template:
entity_id: climate.living_room
hvac_mode: heat
temperature: "{{ states('input_number.boost_target') }}"
# Wait until thermostat and boost targets match - if it fails, cancel after 30 seconds
- wait_template: "{{ (states('sensor.living_room_thermostat_target')) == (states('input_number.boost_target')) }}"
timeout: '00:00:30'
continue_on_timeout: 'false'
# Turn on boost active boolean
- service: input_boolean.turn_on
data:
entity_id: input_boolean.boost_active
# Wait for 30 minutes
- delay:
minutes: "{{ states('input_number.boost_duration') | int }}"
And then I have two automations that will complete the Boost Mode:
First one is triggered by the script being turned off (either manually or by finishing) which will set the thermostat back to the previous target temp
Second one is triggered by the thermostat being changed (either by schedule or manually) which will cancel the heating boost and leave the target temperature alone so as not to override the schedule or someone adjusting the thermostat themselves.
## AUTOMATIONS ##
automation:
# Reset thermostat when Heating Boost script finishes
- alias: Heating Boost Finish
trigger:
# When script is turned off
- platform: state
entity_id: script.heating_boost
from: 'on'
to: 'off'
condition:
# If the boost active boolean is on
- condition: state
entity_id: input_boolean.boost_active
state: 'on'
action:
# Set the thermostat to previous target temp
- service: climate.set_temperature
data_template:
entity_id: climate.living_room
hvac_mode: heat
temperature: "{{ states('input_number.previous_target') }}"
# Wait 2 seconds
- delay: '00:00:02'
# Turn off Boost boolean
- service: input_boolean.turn_off
data:
entity_id: input_boolean.boost_active
# Cancel Heating Boost when Nest schedule takes control or thermostat manually changed
- alias: Heating Boost Overridden
trigger:
# When thermostat is changed
- platform: state
entity_id: sensor.living_room_thermostat_target
condition:
# If boost active boolean is on
- condition: state
entity_id: input_boolean.boost_active
state: 'on'
action:
# Then cancel the script
- service: script.turn_off
data:
entity_id: script.heating_boost
# Wait 2 seconds
- delay: '00:00:02'
# and then turn off the boost active boolean
- service: input_boolean.turn_off
data:
entity_id: input_boolean.boost_active
Overall it has been pretty solid.
Added the script to Alexa and my wife happily asks her to “Turn on heating boost” while i’m out and i’ve also added a easy access button on the main page of HA.
Hope someone finds this useful!
EDIT: Changed some of the YAML to improve the templating.
I’m happy to help if you let me know where you get stuck. My guide assumes you know Home Assistant fairly well already.
There are plenty of resources on here and YouTube to help you get started with Home Assistant
Quick one, would you mind posting the YAML raw config for your lovelace button? I’m trying to do something similar and ohmygod is it hard if you’re not really au fait with lovelace. I tried creating a horizontal stack in order to give my custom button card a size and everything just disappeared. I’m used to CSS and HTML for creating buttons - this makes my brain hurt! Thank you!
I have changed it since and it is just a standard button card now, but I luckily still have my old lovelace file so this is the yaml for the original post.
How do I use this with our NEST? Our new boiler came with a Learning Thermostat 3, and I hate it. I absolutely hate it.
I work from home some days, other days I’m working away - the time is irregular. The Nest bounces the temperature all over the place. It has a mind of its own… I would sooner turn all the smart stuff off and just boost it when we need heat.
I find the thing extremely irritating. I hate it. I’m close to smashing the thing with a lump hammer.
I too am trying to use it with Nest. It works well to come on at current +1.
However I would like it to continue to plus 1 until the time elapses. So far it sets +1 and when reaches that switches off regardless of how long i set the boost for.
Apologies for resurrecting an old thread but I was hoping I could get some help implementing this as we’re really frustrated not having a boost function (which we had when we had Hive in our previous property).
I’m having a few issues:
I am trying to do this without the Works with Nest API as this has been discontinued as stated in the original posting. Instead, I have connected Nest to HA using the instructions within HA and the integration works - I can see the temperature and control the thermostat
From what I can see, _target is no longer available but I could well be wrong here (I can read the value of the current temperature with sensor.hallway_temperature). As we’d only be using the boost when the heating is effectively off, then I’d be happy to hardcode the previous_target to 9. However, if I change the script from value: "{{ states('sensor.hallway_target') }}"
to value: 9
(or “9”), the script doesn’t seem to fire. This shows my lack of knowledge of HA and scripting but I assume this would be easy to fix.
Further to the above, the thermostat module on the homepage shows the target temperature so that data point must be available somehow!
I can successfully set the boost temperature and the thermostat updates
I assume with the new Nest integration the client_id and secret in the posted YAML for the components is not required?
I haven’t even begun to debug the automations to set the temperature back once the boost period has finished. I think this is where I’ll get unstuck without the _target being available as the automation won’t know whether the schedule has kicked in or not.
I hope the above makes some sense and any help gratefully received!
I think I’ve managed to solve this although I still need to test further. Here’s an outline of the changes i had to make (obviously my device names are different) to the orignally posted code
The script was also failing on the check to see if the thermostat and boost target matched. I suspect the new state_attr returns a text datatype (maybe?) so I changed - wait_template: "{{ (states('sensor.living_room_thermostat_target')) == (states('input_number.boost_target')) }}"
to - wait_template: "{{ (state_attr('climate.hallway', 'temperature') | float) == (states('input_number.boost_target') | float) }}"
Automation
#When thermostat is changed
- platform: state
entity_id: sensor.living_room_thermostat_target
to
#When thermostat is changed
- platform: state
entity_id: climate.hallway
attribute: temperature
In the second automation (which detects a change to the thermostat and turns off boost but leaves target temperature as it is), I had to move the code to turn off the boost_active above the code to turn the script off.
