Use automation conditions result in action

Configuration
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1

Hi,

I’m currently working on my first automation so sorry if this is a noob question.

Basically I have this hydroponics “garden” in my living room. It has a lamp and I want to guarantee my garden ~9 hours of light per day without using unnecessary electricity.

My idea is to, every 15 minutes between 9 AM and 6 PM, check if there’s enough sun for the lamp to be turned off (after sunrise/before sunset and cloudiness less than 15%). I’ve set up the automation that turns on the lamp:

  - alias: 'Hydroponics - Turn On'
    trigger:
      - platform: time
        minutes: '/15'
        seconds: 00
    condition:
        condition: and
        conditions:
          - condition: time
            after: '9:00:00'
            before: '18:00:00'
          - condition: or
            conditions:
              - condition: numeric_state
                entity_id: sensor.weather_cloudiness
                above: 15
              - condition: sun
                after: sunset
              - condition: sun
                before: sunrise
    action:
        service: switch.turn_on
        entity_id: switch.hydroponic_switch

I was about to set up the automation to turn off the lamp (that basically negates everything) but was wondering if there’s a smarter/easier way to do this other than basically duplicating everything. E.g. if I want to tweak cloudiness to 20%, I’ll have to remember to do it in both places which doesn’t feel optimal.

Is there a way to use the result of the conditions in the action?
E.g. if the conditions result to false, turn off the lamp?

Or any other way to handle this better?

2

Hi @Adabelle_Leiram,

As far as I know you can’t have that level of info, other than maybe with some more advanced scripting with appdeamon.

A fix for the issue of not having to edit a value multiple times could be to have a “input_number” where you slide the level of cloudiness that should be in the conditions and then just use the state of the input_number in all automations you want.

Edit: And you can of course also use the state of the input_number as a trigger for turning of the lamp. It might seems a little over complicated at first but it often is a good practise to have some kind of intermediary “dummy-input” that gets activated by a device or change by the user and then read by automations. That way you can easily make changes in hardware or test stuff out. I have a input_select with all the possible states of me, home, not home, sleeping etc. I then use that as a kind of “hub” for my apartment, some devices changes it (and at certain times) others read the status and changes accordingly.

Hope this helps, sounds interesting with the hydroponics system :slight_smile:

1 Like
3

Thanks for all the advice. I think that as soon as I start playing around with tabs/groups etc I’ll look at a “dummy input” setup like you suggested. Would be tedious to have to keep updating the yaml file and reloading it just to change a small value.

I’m not so worried about more advanced scripting since I work with programming. Will check out appdaemon.

Thanks again for the tips!

PS: Hydroponics is awesome, it’s really fun to be able to grow your own food even if you live in a city apartment. Tastes much better and lasts much longer as well!

4

Create a template binary sensor, that indicates whether the lamp should be on or off, then you can use that in your on/off automations:

binary_sensor:
  - platform: template
    sensors:
      hydroponics:
        friendly_name: "Hydroponics on"
        entity_id: sun.sun
        value_template: >-
          {{ ( (now().hour >= 9) and (now().hour < 18) ) and (states.sun.sun.attributes.elevation|float < 0) or (states('sensor.weather_cloudiness')|float > 15) }}

It does the same as your conditions, from ‘09:00’ to ‘18:00’ (well, ‘17:59:59’) if the sun is below the horizon (elevation below zero) or cloudy is more than 15. Then your automation becomes:

  - alias: 'Hydroponics - Turn On'
    trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: binary_sensor.hydroponics
        to: 'on'
    action:
        service: switch.turn_on
        entity_id: switch.hydroponic_switch

and

  - alias: 'Hydroponics - Turn Of'
    trigger:
      - platform: state
        entity_id: binary_sensor.hydroponics
        to: 'off'
    action:
        service: switch.turn_off
        entity_id: switch.hydroponic_switch
2 Likes
5

Thanks, this looks like a really smart solution! I’ll definitely give this a try!

6

Would it not be action: where you have condition: ? (I’m still getting my head around templates)

7

Haha probably a typo :slight_smile:

8

Yes, it’s a typo - I’ll fix that :slight_smile:

10

@Adabelle_Leiram - curious to learn about your hydroponics setup.

Did you build it yourself or is it an off-the-shelf solution?

11

Hi! I just bought IKEA’s kit :slight_smile:

1 Like