WTH Automation condition: was entity in 'x' state in the last 'x' minutes even if it has changed state

Archive Month of "What the heck?!" 2022
1

Basically, I would like to be able to check if my door has been open any time in the last ‘x’ minutes/hours despite if it is now closed via the UI.

2

What? Do you mean “Was my door open at any time during the last hour”?
You can check that with the states.my.entity.last_changed attribute, although a little cumbersome I admit.

3

The answer to that will always be false

Did you perhaps mean this?

Check if my door has been open any time in the last hour despite if it is now closed.

If so:

condition:
  condition: or
  conditions:
    - condition: state
      entity_id: binary_sensor.door
      state: 'on'
    - condition: template
      value_template: "{{ states.binary_sensor.door.last_changed > now() - timedelta(minutes=60) }}"

Or in shorthand notation:

condition:
  or:
    - condition: state
      entity_id: binary_sensor.door
      state: 'on'
    - "{{ states.binary_sensor.door.last_changed > now() - timedelta(minutes=60) }}"
2 Likes
4

but this will tell me if the door sensor changed in the past hour… It can go into several states… “unavailable” for example…
I gave the door as an example… but I would use it in other circumstances as well… for example. to check if a person was at work (zone) this morning etc…

Probably it can be achieved via templating… but I guess the goal of the WTH is to make it more user friendly…

1 Like
5

This is example of something you could use History Stats sensors for…

sensor:
  - platform: history_stats
    name: Door open last hour
    entity_id: binary_sensor.my_door
    state: "on"
    type: count
    duration: "01:00:00"
    end: "{{ now() }}"

This would give you a sensor with a value of 0 if the door had not been open in the last hour.

Consider voting for History stats in the UI

4 Likes
6

Is there a smarter solution than this one meanwhile?

If history_stats would be configurable from the UI this would maybe be a more attractive approach.

(via Check an entity's previous state)

2 Likes
7

Was looking for something like this as well.

Example of need:

If the front door has been opened and the living room has been unoccupied in the last minutes, then set TTS “Welcome Home”.

I can’t use me or my phone being home as a condition because this is also true when I leave the house.

Open to other ideas.

8

Make a trigger based template binary sensor.

E.g.

template:
- trigger:
  - id: 'on'
    platform: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.living_room_motion
    from: 'off'
    to: 'on'

  - id: 'off'
    platform: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.living_room_motion
    from: 'on'
    to: 'off'
    for:
      minutes: 5

  binary_sensor:
  - name: Living Room Motion Last 5 Minutes
    state: "{{ trigger.id }}"

Then use that as a condition.

2 Likes
9

For some reason that didn’t work for me. The sensor stayes on “Unknown”. In the process of debugging it, I created a “Toggle” / “Input Boolean” helper plus automation instead:

alias: EG.Küche - Sonos 5min
description: ""
triggers:
  - trigger: state
    entity_id:
      - media_player.eg_kueche_sonos_one
    id: "on"
    to: playing
  - trigger: state
    entity_id:
      - media_player.eg_kueche_sonos_one
    id: "off"
    from: playing
    for:
      hours: 0
      minutes: 5
      seconds: 0
conditions: []
actions:
  - if:
      - condition: trigger
        id:
          - "on"
    then:
      - action: input_boolean.turn_on
        metadata: {}
        data: {}
        target:
          entity_id: input_boolean.eg_kuche_sonos_one_playing_in_last_5_minutes
    else:
      - action: input_boolean.turn_off
        metadata: {}
        data: {}
        target:
          entity_id: input_boolean.eg_kuche_sonos_one_playing_in_last_5_minutes
mode: single

It’s a bit more verbose but works for me.