Trying to include a template sensor as a condition in an automation

Configuration
1

hi all,

here is what i am trying to do.

i have my lounge lamps turn on early morning at a set time and this automation is supposed to turn the lights off 45 mins after sunrise unless the cloud cover is greater then 50% according to dark sky.

i have other automatons that turn the lights on and off depending on the cloud cover % through the day and they work perfectly.

here is what i have.

- id: '1542575515584'
  alias: Turn lounge lamps off after sunrise
  hide_entity: true
  trigger:
  - event: sunrise
    offset: 00:45:00
    platform: sun
  condition:
  - platform: template
    value_template: '{{states. sensor.dark_sky_cloud_coverage.state | int < 50}}'
  action:
  - service: switch.turn_off
    entity_id:
    - switch.corner_lamp
    - switch.tall_lamp

when i do this i get errors telling me to check an empty file for errors .
if I hash out the problem

#  condition:
#  - platform: template
#    value_template: '{{states. sensor.dark_sky_cloud_coverage.state | int < 50}}'

everything works except obviously this condition.

what am i doing wrong? how can i get this to work?

i have almost no coding experience and i’m trying to learn this as i go along but this has me totally stumped for about a week now, any help is greatly received.

thank you all in advance.

2

There is a space after “{{states.”, remove that and try again.
Like this:
value_template: '{{ states.sensor.dark_sky_cloud_coverage.state | int < 50 }}'

3

hi Pippyn,

thanks for your reply, i missed that. however when i corrected it and clicked on “test config” i got the following error.

Invalid config for [automation]: [platform] is an invalid option for [automation]. Check: automation->condition->0->platform. (See /config/configuration.yaml, line 79). Please check the docs at https://home-assistant.io/components/automation/

line 79 in configuration.yaml reads " group: !include groups.yaml" and groups.yaml is empty.

i’m at a total loss as to whats gone wrong here.

4

Platform is for trigger, change that to condition. Also, use the states() method so that this won’t error out if the automation fires during startup.

  condition:
  - condition: template
    value_template: "{{ states('sensor.dark_sky_cloud_coverage') | int < 50 }}"
5

thanks Petro,

that’s it sorted thank you. it was a combination of that and an extra space at the start of another line.