Quick check of my watering automation - will it work?

Configuration
1

Hi guys,

I need some help. I created an automation for my gardena watering. I want to water the garden only when it did not rain (not more than 0.259l).
I am unsure about the way I entered the condition. Do I need to use “,” or “.” and does it work with the key “<” to indicate the rain amount.
Unfortunately I cannot test it easily, because rain sensor is on the roof :slight_smile:

- id: '1656760454216'
  alias: Bewässerung An
  description: ''
  trigger:
  - platform: time
    at: '18:00:00'
  condition:
  - condition: state
    entity_id: sensor.regen_tag
    attribute: state_class
    state: < 0,259
  action:
  - service: switch.toggle
    data: {}
    target:
      entity_id: switch.water_control_50914
  mode: single
- id: '1656760734324'
  alias: Bewässerung Aus
  description: ''
  trigger:
  - platform: time
    at: '19:00:00'
  condition: []
  action:
  - service: switch.toggle
    data: {}
    target:
      entity_id: switch.water_control_50914
  mode: single

Help is very much apreaceated.
Thanks upfront

2

It’s really hard to tell since you didn’t properly format the code block.

use three backticks (```) on the line both before and after the block of code to properly format it.

then we can go from there.

3

The YAML code you posted is unformatted which makes it difficult for anyone to inspect it for indentation errors. Please format it using the forum editor’s </> icon.

4

Sorry guys, I am learning. Is that better now?

5

OK, I am just unsure about that line:

    state: < 0,259
6

Change this:

  - condition: state
    entity_id: sensor.regen_tag
    attribute: state_class
    state: < 0,259

to this:

  - condition: numeric_state
    entity_id: sensor.regen_tag
    below: 0.259

Numeric State Condition

7

Many thanks!

8

OK, unfortunately this didnt work. Log says that the condition wasnt met, although I had no rain today.
What puzzles me is rhe fact, that the rain amout has a comma, like 0,258, but today it was zero.
The rain amount comes from a utility meter, not shure whether this has something to say.

9

You could also do this in Node Red which some people find easier to visualize what is happening with your code.

10

Where does it have a comma?
What is creating this sensor?

11

Go to Developer Tools → States and find sensor.regen_tag. Let us know if its value uses a period or a comma for displaying the decimal point.

If the value is zero then you probably won’t be able to answer the question because it won’t have a decimal point.

If the sensor’s value was zero then it should have satisfied the Numeric State Condition because zero is less than 0.259. :thinking:

12

I checked the sensor value. Indeed the sensor value has a decimal point. It seems due to language setting it is just displayed with comma.
Anyhow, even stranger that condition was not met. Just time works fine.

13

Sensor is a utilitymeter based on a rainmeter (gives only total amount)

state_class: total_increasing
source: sensor.aterm3rm
status: collecting
last_period: '0'
meter_period: daily
cron pattern: 0 0 * * *
last_reset: '2022-07-02T22:00:00.013969+00:00'
unit_of_measurement: mm
icon: mdi:counter
friendly_name: Regen_Tag
14

When I enter the condition in the following way it works:

condition: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.regen_tag
below: '0.259'
15

For the Numeric State Condition, there no difference between this:

below: 0.259

and this:

below: '0.259'
  • The first one represents the value as a floating point number.
  • The second represents it as a string which gets converted to a floating point number.

The main point is that your original version using a State Condition and this:

    attribute: state_class
    state: < 0,259

was completely invalid because the state option doesn’t support mathematical operators and you specified an attribute option which made the State Condition refer to the wrong value.