Detecting wattage below certain value

[north moss]

I'm trying to detect when boiler power consumption goes below 100 watts for 30 seconds, which should turn it off. For some reason it just doesn't run the automation.

am I using the numeric state trigger wrongly?

[autumn tulip]

Hello @north moss,
that looks to me like it will trigger when it goes above the upper limit of 100...

goes below 100 watts

[idle sequoia]

no I think upper limit is right here.

[north moss]

is below for 30 seconds though 🤔

It's been ~1 for like 40 mins

is there any way to debug numeric state?

[idle sequoia]

it will only trigger when it goes above then below again. if its a new automation and its been below the entire time its existed then it wont do anything

can you put the device on for a moment and then off again to see if it works?

[north moss]

its on atm but its finished heating already so it wont consume above

the automation to start it ran though hour ago

[idle sequoia]

nudge the temp setting up a moment?

[north moss]

and it did spike after that

could it be cause it spiked for less than 30 seconds or?

[idle sequoia]

should be an issue there

sometimes the numeric sensor can be a bit touchy to be fair.

you could create a templated binary sensor helper that is "on" when above 100w else "off" then automate off that sensor instead

[north moss]

oh that could work

what is it called in the helpers?

ah templated

[idle sequoia]

add helper - template - binary sensor

this is a random example i have

[north moss]

is that jinja2 templating btw?

[idle sequoia]

yes

[north moss]

ah so i dont have to attach device to it?

sensor.small_boiler_power

[idle sequoia]

you can add class and device to it if you want but its not required

[north moss]

{{ state('sensor.small_boiler_power')|float > 100 }}

hmm unavailable

[idle sequoia]

if you add it to a device it shows up on the devices page so its convenient etc... but i made this one in a hurry ages ago so skipped

states

not state

[north moss]

ope

thank you

[idle sequoia]

no worries, i hope it works out for you

[north moss]

and then i can do like when it goes from on to off?

[idle sequoia]

exactly, you now have a basic on/off sensor you can automate from

[north moss]

has to work

[north moss]

perfect

thanks again

[idle sequoia]

boom!

although calling it "xxx on" bothers me a little 😛 something like "xxx status" or "xxx state" makes more sense to me... but its your system 🙂

[north moss]

yeah I changed aha

the lowercase was bothering me

it worked

[idle sequoia]

awesome!

[north moss]

ok so ive found a flaw even with the binary sensor

same flaw actually

when it turns it on, if boiler is already heated it wont go above 100watts so the state will remain off

any idea how i could make it work?

maybe i could start timer for like 20 seconds 🤔

and make the template power < 100W || timer state on