I have a bunch of presence and motion sensors (like four, but shush) and when people leave rooms I would like to turn the lights off after five minutes, however if someone returns to the room before that five minutes is up, I’d like to start that countdown again. Is there a grateful way to do this that isn’t me just doing if no activity for five minutes, turn off the lights, else wait five minutes and then turn off the lights. Because that’s ugly, rigid and not very smart at all.
Are you doing all the logic in HA or are you using NodeRED?
I used to have a similar timer reset for my “going to bed” button that I could cancel/snooze before the events started firing. It was done in NodeRED, though, and HA just glued that logic to the UI and buttons.
How did you get into NodeRed?
I was complaining to a friend about how clunky it was to setup automations in HA, and they told me about NodeRED. lol. Haven’t looked back.
This was before the UI or recently?
About 5 years ago, so probably before.
OP would be able to accomplish this in NodeRED pretty easily. It’s probably pretty easy in HA too, but my brain only works with NodeRED haha.
Why do you love NodeRed so much?
I’ve been using HA for about 7 or 8 years (maybe longer?). Everything used to be YAML only, including automations. Now you can set up devices in the GUI, make automations in the GUI, etc., but I learned NodeRED when things weren’t as streamlined. I’ve never bothered to learn HA automations because NodeRED is so great.
How do you feel about the progress that Home Assistant has seen while you’ve been using it? And looking at the climbing adoption, you must feel like a proud parent?
It has come a long way, absolutely.
There was a while where if you didn’t check the change logs before updating, you’d likely be in for some surprises. That’s pretty rare now.
I don’t really feel like a proud parent because I haven’t contributed much, even in the way of bug reports. I’ve just been along for the ride.
You say that, but the last update broke my thermostat with their new climate controls and also some of my lights needed switching to the light service from the switch service.
The thermostat backend didn’t change, just the card right? It looks different but didn’t lose any functionality. Sorry you had trouble with it. I have 4 or 5 different thermostats and they never stopped working.