#Which helper to show me if my appliance is on or not.

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

night aspen
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What kind of helper should i use to determine if an appliance is on or not? Im currently using an IKEA inspelning to determine the wattage being used.
Its pretty clear when its off but the standby wattage moves a little making it pretty difficult to establish a baseline, this goes up and down, so it could be 5w before its on but then 6w once its off, or maybe even 3w.
The device is also efficient when in use so when its on it can dip below the standby wattage for a minute or more.
delay_off can help here but without being able to establish a clear baseline its challenging.

are there other kinds of helpers that can help me determine if my appliance is on? i'd like it to be responsive (< 2 min)
in the picture it was on from 21:50 until 7:10, as can be seen the standby wattage varies.

image.png
round galleon
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Depends on how precise you want to be for when it's off. I just use a numeric_state being below a value for a minute or two for my washer dryer, and it looks like that would work here too. You could do the same with a template sensor

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You could also use a statistics sensor with a small time window

night aspen
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Thank you for responding @round galleon .
yeah its pretty important that its precise, i don't want it triggered (on or off) when its not actually the case as there will be some safety involved. granted i will not be implementing anything regarding safety until i find the sensor reliable enough over a comfortable period of time.
What would be a small time window in this case? as you can see it sometimes flattens out when in use, sometimes nearly 30 minutes.

round galleon
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It doesn't look like it flattens at the same level as when it's off

night aspen
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Thats true. What kind of characteristic should i use? i've never used a sensor like statistics before.

round galleon
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From the data, it never seems to drop down to the same level as it was at the beginning. If that's really the case, I don't see a clear solution

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surely it does at some point

night aspen
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unfortunately it seems not to:

image.png
round galleon
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so the baseline just keeps increasing to infinity 🙂

night aspen
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it also decreases, i think the plug may just be inaccurate at these low wattages.

round galleon
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doesn't seem that efficient 🙂

night aspen
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so even a statistics sensor would not be the solution here due to the fluctuating baseline?

round galleon
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statistics aren't my strong suit, but it looks like noisiness might be useful here

night aspen
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i see, okay, i'll give it a shot, this'll likely take some time to perfect :p

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thanks!

round galleon
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indeed. there are lots of options