Trigger by history sensor value

Configuration
1

Hi

I’m using Mi Flora sensor for the flowers and I’m looking for a way to trigger the automation if the flowers weren’t watered more than two days.

The graph/data is as follows:

image
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Probably I need to configure the template trigger with some loop that checking for the last 2 days sensor data.
Any ideas how it can be done?

Thanks!

2

Any reason you don’t just trigger it based on the value of the ‘Flower Moisture’ sensor directly?

3

It’s done like this now.
It’s not always accurate and can show bit different value, so I prefer to water the plants every X days…

4

Just asking because I set up an (overly?!) complicated set of automations based on time and actual precipitation because I didn’t want to go for a humidity sensor in the ground (for cost and reliability reasons). Your skepticism seems to confirm my approach :wink:

It resulted in this, but the convoluted way I’ve coded it makes it un-shareable at the moment :frowning:

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The drip system turns on every 2 days (can be changed) at 5:55am but only if the precipitation has been too low (in the current setup the threshold is 100U).
You can see that it was scheduled to run on 4/7, i.e. 2 days after it ran last time, but the threshold hasn’t been reached since then yet.

What I would recomment - without having it coded that way - would be to:

  1. Set up a datetime variable that stores the value when the system was run last.
#Test for storing last runtime for the sprinkler
input_datetime:
  sprinkler_last_runtime: 
    name: Sprinkler Stored Runtime 
    has_date: true
    has_time: true
  1. Build an automation that runs at a specific time each day and checks if the value for the _sprinkler_last_runtime is older than e.g. 47h59m. (mine has the additional 100U-condition built in).
######################################################################
# Check Sprinkler Conditions at 05:55h each day
######################################################################
- alias: Check Sprinkler Conditions at 05:55h each day
  trigger:
    platform: time
    hours: 05
    minutes: 55
    seconds: 00
  condition:
    condition: and 
    conditions:
      - condition: template
        value_template: >-
          {% set next_runval = states('sensor.sprinkler_next_runval') | float %}
          {% set now_val = as_timestamp(now()) | float %}
          {{ now_val > next_runval }}
      - condition: template
        value_template: '{{ (states.sensor.preciptotal4sprinkler.state | int) < 100 }}'
  action:
    - service: notify.mypushbullet
      data_template:
        title: "Home Assistant says:"
        message: 'Time to water!'
    - service: homeassistant.turn_on
      entity_id: input_boolean.time_to_water
    - service: homeassistant.turn_on
      entity_id: input_boolean.sprinkler
  1. As part of the last automation that actually runs the drip system, I also store the time it was last run in the datetime variable.
- alias: sprinkler run time
  trigger:
    platform: state
    entity_id: input_boolean.sprinkler
    from: 'off'
    to: 'on'
  action:
#    - service: shell_command.save_sprinkler_last_runtime
    - service: input_datetime.set_datetime
      data_template:
        entity_id: input_datetime.sprinkler_last_runtime
        time: '{{ (as_timestamp(now()) | timestamp_custom("%H:%M:%S", true)) }}'
        date: '{{ (as_timestamp(now()) | timestamp_custom("%Y-%m-%d", true)) }}'

I was told that some people have a trigger that works on the principle of now() - 48h, but I couldn’t get that to work so I made it a condition instead:

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/change-an-input-boolean-once-a-certain-point-in-time-has-come/48275

5

Thanks for the detailed reply!

I think for me actually will be enough just storing the last watering date (it’s pretty easy to detect) and the other automation as you mentioned, I will base on the this date and moisture sensor value as well.

1 Like