Random.. How random it is?

Configuration
1

Recently found out great stuff - that you can move the phrases out to their own file. Somehting like below

  - service: tts.yandextts_say
    entity_id: media_player.vannaya, media_player.zal_tts
    data_template:
      message: !include ../sounds/phrases_bathtime.yaml

In than file - standard notation

>
  {{ [
    "phrase1",
    "phrase2",
     "phrase3"
  ]|random }}

With that in mind i have set up a file with over 50 phrases to get called when it’s bath time for my daughter. The problem is - it’s not that random. Actually “phrase 4” gets called out almost every second day… Anybody else is noticing that random behaviour is not that random?

2

Not to deminish your issue but truely random would mean the chance of getting phrase 4 would be equal every day. 1:50

3

So having it called out every other day (50%) seems a wrong behavior… or really bad luck :roll_eyes:

4

That’s not exactly how probability works. The “trend” of it getting called 50% of the time is purely coincidence assuming that there is ample entropy available. For instance, flipping a coin 4 times and getting heads all 4 doesn’t make it any more or less likely that you’d get tails on the fifth time. Unless your a ghost tracking down an old friend that may have been responsible for your death…

5

I agree that in randomness there is a chance for a sequence with many repetitions of the same item, and for a “physical” event like a coin toss that would be my bet.
But because we are talking about a software implementation, a sequence with repetition can be the hint of a hidden bug. I’m not screaming “buggy generator”, but maybe it would be worth to take a look.

6

Yep getting 1 specific entry half the time from a collection of 50 entry seems pretty unlikely.
But who knows ^^

Maybe try to manually trigger that automation several time, and see if this entry 4 still comes up most of the time or if it was just randomly picked several time?

7

Could it have anything to do with this issue:

The include maybe just insert one value? And you only get new value after a restart?