Vacuum when not at home and everyday I am away

Configuration
1

Hi everyone! I am trying to automate my vacuum cleaner to:

  1. Clean when I am not at home
  2. Clean everyday (if I am away)
  3. Not clean more than once a day (within 24hrs)

From my automation below, the automation is activated when ‘away mode’ is activated and if the vacuum has not been on for the last 24hrs.

I am stuck on the ‘clean everyday’ part… anyone got any best practices on how I can handle that bit? I want it to clean everyday I am away. I don’t think setting a specific time to clean would work given that I leave the house at different times each day.

- id: '1604430133826'
  alias: 'Robovac: Clean when I am not home'
  description: When I am not home, run the vacuum cleaner if it has not ran for the
    past 24 hours
  trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id: input_boolean.away_mode
    from: 'off'
    to: 'on'
  condition:
  - condition: state
    entity_id: input_boolean.away_mode
    state: 'on'
  - condition: state
    entity_id: vacuum.robovac
    state: 'off'
    for:
      hours: 24
  action:
  - data: {}
    entity_id: vacuum.robovac
    service: vacuum.start
2

So I have it run at a certain time each day if home group (wife and I) is away. This leads to it not running every day but generally it runs 4-5 days a week and truthfully that is plenty to keep it clean. Doing it this way was much simpler since it doesn’t require turning on and off a boolean. But here’s how to do it not with time as a trigger:

  1. If its just you use your .person entity or if more than you make a group with the other person entities as the trigger. Use that as the trigger when it goes to not_home and trigger the following actions:
    a. run the vacuum
    b. turn on “vacuum_ran_today” input boolean

  2. condition the above on “vacuum_ran_today” boolean being off.

    • this ensure that if you leave home more than once in a day it wont run twice

  3. make another automation to run once a day to turn off the “vacuum_ran_today” bolean

    • I have a few booleans that get reset daily so I run the reset at midnight.
3

Just do a single automation with a wait_template. A wait_template is a sequence that waits (forever or until a timeout) for something to evaluate to true.

It will run the same time every day, then wait for you to be away.

- alias: Vacuum
  mode: single
  trigger:
  - platform: time
    at: "09:00:00"
  action:
    # Starts at 9 am, and waits until this turns on. 
    # If this is already on, no waiting will happen.
    - wait_template: "{{ is_state('input_boolean.away_mode', 'on') }}"
      # Optional - add a timeout for how long this will wait. 
      timeout: "06:00:00"
      continue_on_timeout: false
    - service: vacuum.start
      entity_id: vacuum.robovac

Downside is it wont be a strict 24 hour cycle. It might run at 11 am one day, then 9 am the next day. I’m guessing your main concern with the 24 hour timeout is so it didn’t run every time you were away.

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