WTH theres still no UI-configurable "Wait for the state to be X for Y minutes" without need for trigger?

Month of "What the heck?!"
1

At least in my home, one of the most common bits of Jinja2 im using and most of my automations is:

wait_template: "{{ is_state('binary_sensor.occupancy_downstairs','on') or (now().timestamp() - as_timestamp(states.binary_sensor.occupancy_downstairs.attributes.last_triggered)) / 60 > 5 }}"

The problem with using Jinja2 is that those templates are easy to make mistake in (HA doesnt do a proper validation of jinja2 code) and hard to debug, particularly if we’re not waiting for just one state, but for example 5-6 states.

Wait for trigger is very similar to the above, but it has one massive downside - it actually needs a trigger so the state needs to change at least one before HA even starts counting the time

2

This has existed for a long long time now. Available in yaml and UI.

- trigger: state
  entity_id: binary_sensor.occupancy_downstairs
  to: 'on'
  for:
    minutes: 5

and there’s a condition version too, which only checks the past instantaneously


- condition: state
  entity_id: binary_sensor.occupancy_downstairs
  state: 'on'
  for:
    minutes: 5

lastly, wait for trigger is retroactive. I.e. It will trigger if you set it to 5 minutes and 4 of the minutes already occurred when you start waiting for the trigger. So this statement is false:

To replicate your jinja above with wait_for_trigger (or wait_template), from the UI:

wait_for_trigger:
- trigger: state
  entity_id: binary_sensor.occupancy_downstairs
  to: 'on'
- trigger: state
  entity_id: binary_sensor.occupancy_downstairs
  to: ~
  for:
    minutes: 5
1 Like
3

Ive been experimenting with wait_for_trigger but went back to using wait_template this morning, as wait_for_trigger wasnt working as you describe.
Lets say i want an automation which triggers at 5am and runs the vacuum if nobody is present downstairs (occupancy_downstairs is off), but if someone gets up and sits downstairs at 5am (occupancy_downstairs is on), it will pause and wait for everyone to go away before turning the vacuum on.
Trigger 5am is simple, i want the automation to run only once per day. But if i use wait_for_trigger, then the vacuum will never actually kick in at 5, because wait_for_trigger waits for the trigger to happen (binary_sensor.occupancy_downstairs to change state)

4

Add an if statement to only wait for a trigger if there’s movement.

if:
- condition: state
  entity_id: binary_sensor.occupancy_downstairs
  state: 'on'
then:
  wait_for_trigger:
  - trigger: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.occupancy_downstairs
    to: 'off'
    for: 
      minutes: 5
5

hmmm interesting, this can work for me, thanks