I would like to request an enhancement to the timer helper. While you can set a timer that will count down to zero, there would be value in providing an option to count up from zero as well.
I’m using a workaround created by Miguelpucela and detailed in this thread. It works, but it’s a lot of pieces to keep track of when you need to set up several of them. There are a lot of threads on the forum about a ‘stopwatch’ so the concept appears to be popular.
A couple of use cases:
- The washing machine completes it’s cycle, but the kids are slow to empty it out. It would be very handy to know how long the clothes have been sitting after the cycle completes so that HA can trigger notifications to avoid a mildew nightmare.
- It’s important that our dogs go outside to take care of their business before we lock up the house at night. I have a vibration sensor on the dog door to roughly track how often they use the door. It would be helpful to have a timer that tells me “They haven’t been outside in 86 minutes” so that I can encourage them to go out before we go to bed.
While there are ways of deriving this info, having it integrated as an easy-to-use helper would be awesome.
Dave