What kind of component or entity do I need for this?

[Mahko_Mahko]

@ImaginaryTango

The lambda worked - exactly the same as suggested in that other thread and made at about the same time.

I think I found that over here.

Get template value into my binary sensor code

well well. once again, asking the question has lead to the answer - delayed_off: !lambda return id(pir_delay).state * 1000.0; It would seem no quotes on the pir_delay portion and multiplying by 1000 did it. I suspected since it wasn’t given a unit of measurement it was interpreting it as milliseconds. I added the multiplier to get it to seconds. It seems to work now.