Time difference between previous sensor update

Configuration
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1

I want to measure the time difference with milliseconds accuracy between the previous sensor state and the upcoming one. Or to put it in another way: i need the time delta of the last 2 sensor states.

What I’m trying to accomplish with this is:

I have a Tasmota with a photodiode attached as a counter and hooked up to my energy meter which blinks 1600/kwh. I can measure the consumption, but i’d also like to measure momentary wattage.

For this I need to convert kwh to w, and for that i need the time difference of the 2 measurement points.

I tried to fiddle with as_timestamp(now()) and i’m getting results by subtracting some values from each other, but i’m getting nowhere meaningful values which i can incorporate in what i want to accomplish.

2

I would have thought, from an accuracy point of view, that you’d be better off performing the calculation on the Tasmota flashed device and then passing the result to HA.

I know this could be done with ESPHome but I’m not familiar enough with Tasmota to suggest how.

3

I suggest creating a Trigger-based Template Sensor.

The following example, it reports the time delta of the state-changes of a motion sensor.

template:
  - trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: binary_sensor.foyer_motion
        from: 'off'
        to: 'on'
    sensor:
      - name: Motion Time Delta
        state: '{{ (trigger.to_state.last_changed - trigger.from_state.last_changed).total_seconds() }}'

The initial value will be unknown and will report a numeric time delta (in seconds) after it is triggered.

Screenshot from 2022-04-19 16-19-55
Screenshot from 2022-04-19 16-19-55950×151 13.7 KB

3 Likes
4

To and from, duh.
I had like 50 tabs open about templating and what not and the solution is ever so simple.

Works perfectly, thank you very much.

5

You’re welcome!

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