I have a value which is actual consumption, so it spends a lot of time at a static value.
At the moment I have a utility meter which is in delta_values=true and in order to get it to record, I have to use a “buffer variable” and I have an automation that, every five minutes, sets the buffer variable to 0 and then sets it to the consumption value.
At that point, the utility meter reads the buffer variable and adds it to the total.
I want to get away from using the buffer variable and force the utility meter to just read the source and add the value, at a pre-defined time period.
I’ve tried using home assistant to update the source sensor and also the utility meter… but neither trigger an actual read. Only a change in the value of the source (or buffer) will actually cause the utility meter to read the value and add it to the total so far.
(I use the utility meter because it resets itself and it’s easy to get the history from )
Any way to automate the utility meter to update without having to use a buffer variable please?
Here’s the trick. I can use “number set” on a number template to set it to 0 and then it recalculates… but I can’t do it on a sensor.
And… via the GUI I can set a utility meter to follow a sensor… but not a number. (I can if I revert to creating the utility meter in configuration.yaml, but I’m trying to stick to the GUI)
You can reset an utility meter with the action Utility Meter: Reset or set the number with Utility Meter: Calibrate
Utility Meter “polling” is not possible from what I know. The only option is to make a dummy sensor as the source and update the meter with Calibrate through an automation.
That’s what I’m doing already, basically.
It seems that many people have asked over the years for some method of manually polling a utility meter through an automation, if not an automatic polling mechanism, but it seems that it’s a feature that has flown under the radar, because I can’t find any record of it being considered let alone rejected. Still, maybe there’ll be another WTF or WFF or whatever it was called, at the end of the year!
Well, it’s the best solution I’ve got so far, but it does mean that when the number changes naturally, it causes another addition. Hmm… still got some ironing out to do.
