Time trigger automation

Configuration
1

Hello, I’m little bit confusing the different between :

automation 1:
    alias: 'test 1'
    trigger:
      platform: time
      after: '23:09'
    
    action:
        service: persistent_notification.create
        data:
            message: "{{states.sensor.alarm_time.state}}"
            title: "message"

and this :

automation 2:
    alias: 'test 2'
    trigger:
      platform: time
      after: '{{states.sensor.alarm_time.state}}' # it is 23:09
    
    action:
        service: persistent_notification.create
        data:
            message: "{{states.sensor.alarm_time.state}}"
            title: "message"

This is code for alarm :

sensor: 
  platform: template
  sensors:
    alarm_hour:
      friendly_name: 'Hour'
      value_template: '{{ states("input_slider.alarmhour") | round(0) }}'
    alarm_minutes:
      friendly_name: 'Minutes'
      value_template: '{{ states("input_slider.alarmminutes") | round(0) }}'
    alarm_time:
      friendly_name: 'Time'
      value_template: '{% if states("sensor.alarm_hour")|length == 1 %}0{% endif %}{{ states("sensor.alarm_hour") }}:{% if states("sensor.alarm_minutes")|length == 1 %}0{% endif %}{{ states("sensor.alarm_minutes") }}'

“test 1” worked but “test 2” dont, how to make “test 2” works?

2

Automation #2 doesn’t work because you can’t use a template within a time trigger. You could consider using a template trigger instead, or use a different trigger and use the trigger above as a condition.

3

Can I change that into condition:time trigger?
Or I make another input boelan as state trigger (ON/OFF) and use the trigger in the condition: time after (but first I compare to now.time() to my trigger? So I’m still get “time” trigger

4

Try this as a trigger:

trigger:
  platform: template
  value_template: '{{ now.time().strftime("%H:%M") == states.sensor.alarm_time.state }}'

It will use your sensor’s state to retrieve the time.

5

Yes, but is it enough?

or I’m still compare to current time to still get “time” trigger.

May be with this

condition:
   condition : template
   value_template: '{% if is_state('sensor.alarm_time', 'now.time().strftime("%H:%M")') %} true {% endif %}'

But, I retrieve some errors expected , but found ‘’.
Any possible solution?

6

I’ve changed code to this, but at certain time, message not appeared.
I must have a comparison between sensor.alarm_time.state and current time, if it same then do the action.
But how to tell this?

sensor: 
  platform: template
  sensors:
    alarm_hour:
      friendly_name: 'Hour'
      value_template: '{{ states("input_slider.alarmhour") | round(0) }}'
    alarm_minutes:
      friendly_name: 'Minutes'
      value_template: '{{ states("input_slider.alarmminutes") | round(0) }}'
    alarm_time:
      friendly_name: 'Time'
      value_template: '{% if states("sensor.alarm_hour")|length == 1 %}0{% endif %}{{ states("sensor.alarm_hour") }}:{% if states("sensor.alarm_minutes")|length == 1 %}0{% endif %}{{ states("sensor.alarm_minutes") }}'
    total_time:
      value_template: '{{now.time().strftime("%R")}}'
input_slider: 
  alarmhour:
    name: Hour
    icon: mdi:timer
    initial: 9
    min: 0
    max: 23
    step: 1
  alarmminutes:
    name: Minutes
    icon: mdi:timer
    initial: 1
    min: 0
    max: 59
    step: 1

    
input_boolean:
  timer_state:
    name: Timer Lampu LED
    initial: off
    icon: mdi:spotlight
group:
  Test:
    - input_boolean.timer_state
    - sensor.alarm_time
    - input_slider.alarmhour
    - input_slider.alarmminutes  

automation:
    alias: 'test'
    trigger:
      platform: template
      value_template: '{{ now.time().strftime("%H:%M") == states.sensor.alarm_time.state }}'
    condition:
      platform: state
      entity_id: input_boolean.timer_state
      to: 'on'
    action:
        service: persistent_notification.create
        data:
            message: "{{states.sensor.alarm_time.state}}"
            title: "test"
7

Your condition state can’t have to: on statement. Also it has to be condition: state too
The whole other automation seems right to me. Just let the entire minute of your alarm_time to expire to check if automation triggers.

automation:
    alias: 'test'
    trigger:
      platform: template
      value_template: '{{ now.time().strftime("%H:%M") == states.sensor.alarm_time.state }}'
    condition:
      condition: state
      entity_id: input_boolean.timer_state
      state: 'on'
    action:
        service: persistent_notification.create
        data:
            message: "{{states.sensor.alarm_time.state}}"
            title: "test"
8

So, are this correct? I switch that condition to trigger :

automation:
    alias: 'test'
    trigger:
      platform: state
      entity_id: input_boolean.timer_state
      to: 'on'
    condition:
      platform: template
      value_template: '{% if is_state('sensor.alarm_time', 'now.time().strftime("%H:%M")') %} true {% endif %}'
    action:
        service: persistent_notification.create
        data:
            message: "{{states.sensor.alarm_time.state}}"
            title: "test"

But it still give error expected , but found ‘’
Any idea?

9

With your automation, It will trigger only when you change your input_boolean to ‘on’, and will check the condition only for one time.
Also, in your value_template, if you are using single quotes inside template, use double quotes on the outside part of the template.

"{% if is_state('sensor.alarm_time', 'now.time().strftime('%H:%M')') %} true {% endif %}"
10

Thanks for your correction, I will try that
Actually I want make a timer for light that can switch on & switch off at user defined time.
So maybe I will add condition for “before” time.
Is it enough for that to check only one time like your said? Or I must add another condition?

11

I am exactly interested in this trigger but have problem with now.time().strftime("%H:%M"). For debugging when I use it as sensor it show time when hass is started BUT then it is not updated anymore.

sensor:
- platform: template
sensors:
time_current:
friendly_name: Current time
value_template: “{{now.time().strftime(’%H:%M’) }}”

So that trigger is fired when I set sliders to time when hass started BUT I would like it to check continuously if current time is equal to time set by sliders.

12

Yes, it depends on slider changes because the platform is “template”.
So the solution for me is to keep that platform in time, checking every certain moment and do the action.

13

I was also interested but had to learn more about templates before finding more advanced solutions in this community. Time to give back some…

A notable change from http://jinja.pocoo.org/docs/dev/templates/

Note that even if rounded to 0 precision, a float is returned. If you need a real integer, pipe it through int:

{{ 42.55|round|int }}
→ 43

A quicker way to always return 2 digits integers in your input_slider template sensors :

{{ "%0.02d:%0.02d" | format(states.input_slider.wakeupweektimehour.state|int, states.input_slider.wakeupweektimemin.state | int) }}

@MatoKafkac it’s probably not updating for some other reason, I had the same feeling until all my sensors were fixed. AFAIK there shouldn’t be a need to check every state change, you could either use a template as a trigger, which will eat your CPU by checking every state change (cc @cyber.mocca), or you could enable the logger and set it to DEBUG, which will print out in STDOUT more infos about the components/sensors, so not only state changes from the core. If your shell is configured for colors, you’ll see it in blue. An easy way is to try fish – the friendly interactive shell, which will enable colors by default, among other good stuff for noobs (%

Also didn’t want to rework my input_sliders that are using seconds, so using:

     {{ "%0.02d:%0.02d:%0.02d" | format(
     ( states("input_slider.delay_seconds")|int//3600 ),
     ( states("input_slider.delay_seconds")|int%3600//60 ),
     ( states("input_slider.delay_seconds")|int%3600%60) ) }}

it will work if you stay under a day, but using seconds makes small adjustments quite difficult!

14

@thefrenchmatt I like your 2 input slider solution much better than what I came up:)

        #value_template: "{% if states.input_slider.time_lamp_off_hour.state | int < 10 %}0{% endif %}{{ states.input_slider.time_lamp_off_hour.state | int }}:{% if states.input_slider.time_lamp_off_minute.state | int < 10 %}0{% endif %}{{ states.input_slider.time_lamp_off_minute.state | int }}"

According my automation problem with time triggering this is one solution

sensor:
    - platform: time_date
      display_options:
        - 'time'
    - platform: template
      sensors:
        time_lamp_on:
          friendly_name: Lamp time ON
          value_template: "{{ '%0.02d:%0.02d' | format(states.input_slider.time_lamp_on_hour.state|int, states.input_slider.time_lamp_on_minute.state | int) }}"

automation:
    alias: Lamp turn on timing
    trigger:
        - platform: template
          value_template: '{{ states.sensor.time.state == states.sensor.time_lamp_on.state }}'
    action: 
        - service: shell_command.set_lamp_on
1 Like
15

Thanks, glad something helped :slight_smile:

As for your turn_on timing: you could add a condition that your sensor is not to its defaults, and/or use another automation to turn_on ‘automation.lamp_turn_on_timing’…

I’m insisting on not using template triggers because each state change will be checked against it… To translate it into my own experience: since I removed many of those triggers, hass got more responsive and before I just couldn’t understood why adding sensor templates was slowing everything wayyy down.

I’m also stuck on finding a flexible ‘state trigger’ automation with input_slider, it was working for me a while back but I then had to resort to scenes (~30 for each group of lights) so that I could simply use the to_state as a part of my scene name… it worked quite well, especially using the same input_slider set low states (I used values 10->100 to set brightness 1->9, and the rest to go up to 254~255, all in increments of 10).

But having that many scenes just seemed silly.

I have to mention I tried AppDaemon but I would have to modify the examples (as I’m mainly interested in using the motion sensors I have, and maybe later BLE triangulation) to move away from using constants as an off delay.

AppDaemon is nice because you can easily define and reproduce automations, but to get it to be flexible, you do have to learn python the hard way.

If I find something working, I’ll sure report back here.

EDIT
Well, reporting back and it was just a matter of using |int instead of |int|round() !

16 
value_template: '{{ states.sensor.time.state == states.sensor.time_lamp_on.state }}'

Hi.
If there is no electricity at the time of asking this question, the action will not be executed.
Do you have any idea how to solve that?
Thanks