Create a Step Type Power Function

[chrisolson91]

Hi there, I"m pretty new to this tool but loving it so far. One question, is there a way to create a step sort of power function. I didn't really see anything similar to that in the documentation. My use case would be like a dumb chest freezer or refrigerator that powers on and off to keep temperature. I thought I could maybe use the playbook feature but it would basically need repeat continually and wasn't sure how that would be triggered. Thought I'd ask about other ideas.

[bramstroker]

Currently this is not possible. You could do with an input_number helper which you use as the value for the power sensor using fixed strategy. And than set the state of the input number entity using an automation and delays etc.

But I think it would not be much work to extend the playbook functionality to support this.
I imagine we could add two options autostart and repeat, which can both be set to true.
autostart will automatically run the playbook whenever HA starts, and repeat will start the playbook again on first item when finished. Will consider implementing this.

That being said I'm not sure refrigerator will be 100% predictable as it is probably dependant on room temperature, how full the fridge is and how many time you open/close the door.

[bramstroker]

New features for playbook implemented. Will be in next version.
See https://homeassistant-powercalc.readthedocs.io/en/latest/strategies/playbook.html

[chrisolson91]

that's sweet! thanks so much for implementing that!...I agree refrigerator probably doesn't have the best correlation. My chest freezers were what I was mainly thinking of trying it with though. Can't wait to try it out!

[bramstroker]

Just release v1.8.8 which contains this feature. Let me know if it works for you or you run into any issues.

even cooler, I also added playbook configuration to the GUI, so you don't have to use YAML per se to set it up.