Simple irrigation automation

[stov]

Hello,

I would like to create a simple irrigation automation that will:

1. turn the pump ( switch.irrigationbalcony ) on :

• 30 min before sunrise
• at 09:00
• at 15:00
• 100 min after sunset

2. for N minutes (N should be a variable that can be changed via UI widget like a scroll, “+/-”, arrows or similar).

(a). What is the best way to write this? Preferably It should be one automation (instead of 4) that can be enabled/disabled at once. Maybe with scripts somehow?
(b) What is the best place in UI for widget configuring N (if it is possible to choose a place for it at all)?

Thank you very much in advance!

[tom_l]

Input Number:

Input Number

input_number:
  minute_delay:
    name: Delay in Minutes
    min: 0
    max: 35
    step: 1

Automation:

Automation Trigger

trigger:
  - platform: sun
    event: sunrise
    offset: "-00:30:00"
  - platform: time
    at:
      - "09:00:00"
      - "15:00:00"
  - platform: sun
    event: sunset
    offset: "01:40:00"
action:
  - service: switch.turn_on
    target:
      entity_id: switch.irrigationbalcony
  - delay: "{{ states('input_number.minute_delay') | multiply(60) | int }}"
  - service: switch.turn_off
    target:
      entity_id: switch.irrigationbalcony

Put the input number in an entities card in the Lovelace frontend.

Entities Card

[stov]

Worked perfectly. Exactly as I wanted! And I learned a couple of new things. Thank you very much!

[tom_l]

Beware that restarting home assistant while the automation is waiting in the delay will prevent this turning off.

[stov]

What is the proper solution to this problem?

Define another automation that will trigger at

"09:00:00 + 'input_number.minute_delay'"

?

[tom_l]

Another automation:

trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id: switch.irrigationbalcony
    to: 'on'
    for: "{{ states('input_number.minute_delay') | multiply(60) | int }}"
action:
  - service: switch.turn_off
    target:
      entity_id: switch.irrigationbalcony

Worst case is running for double the time - If the delay was just about to expire when you restarted.

There are other options that use timers that can be restored with a bit of work:

Restore active/paused timers after a restart

Notice of Deprecation Thanks to the contribution of raman325, starting from Home Assistant version 2022.4, an active or paused timer entity can be restored after a restart. Therefore the restoration technique described in this topic is no longer needed. This topic remains for historical purposes, in case someone is curious to learn more about the scripting techniques it used to restore active/paused timers. However no further support for it will be provided now that timer restoration is a nat…

[stov]

Shouldn’t this “cut off” automation fire even if I turn on the switch.irrigationbalcony manually? - Which is actually a great thing if one turns on the irrigation manually and forgets about it… this automation should turn it off after input_number.minute_delay minutes… The problem - it doesn’t seem to launch if I turn irrigation manually… what is wrong?

[tom_l]

Yes it should. Do you have the correct switch entity_id?

[stov]

Works great, as expected. Didn’t change anything. Don’t know why id didn’t work before… Thank you!