WTH can't I add time to a running timer?

[Ingo]

I spent hours trying to figure out why I couldn’t add time to a timer, then I found:

Allow timer.change to exceed timer’s original duration

I have been using the following work around to overcome the limitation. Basically start the timer with something very big, then substrate the timer to what you need. Then you have the flexibility to add further time later. [IMG_2744]

And how I’m working around it now:

      - alias: Start or add 30 minutes to Camera-Disable Timer
        if:
          - condition: state
            entity_id: timer.camera_disable_timer
            state: active
            for:
              hours: 0
              minutes: 0
              seconds: 0
        then:
          - action: timer.start
            metadata: {}
            target:
              entity_id: timer.camera_disable_timer
            data:
              duration: >
                {{ (state_attr('timer.camera_disable_timer', 'finishes_at') |
                as_datetime - now() + timedelta(minutes=30)).total_seconds() |
                round(0) }}
            alias: Add 30 minutes to timer
        else:
          - alias: Set it really high
            action: timer.start
            metadata: {}
            data:
              duration: "60:30:00"
            target:
              entity_id: timer.camera_disable_timer
          - action: timer.change
            metadata: {}
            data:
              duration: "-60:00:00"
            target:
              entity_id: timer.camera_disable_timer
            alias: Reduce it by all but 30 minutes