2024.12.2
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Threshold

The threshold integration observes the state of another sensor. If the value is below or higher than the given threshold, then the state of the threshold sensor is changed. It also supports a range if both the upper and lower limits are given.

If the sensor is configured with no hysteresis and the sensor value is equal to the threshold, the sensor is turned off since it is not upper or lower with respect to the threshold.

Configuration

To add the Threshold helper to your Home Assistant instance, use this My button:

Manual configuration steps

If the above My button doesn’t work, you can also perform the following steps manually:

  • Browse to your Home Assistant instance.

  • Go to Settings > Devices & Services.

  • At the top of the screen, select the tab: Helpers.

  • In the bottom right corner, select the Create helper button.

  • From the list, select Threshold.

  • Follow the instructions on screen to complete the setup.

Name

The name the sensor should have. You can change it again later.

Input sensor

The entity providing numeric readings to apply the threshold on.

Hysteresis

The distance the observed value must be from the threshold before the state is changed.

Lower limit

The lower threshold which the observed value is compared against.

Upper limit

The upper threshold which the observed value is compared against.

YAML configuration

Alternatively, this integration can be configured and set up manually via YAML instead. To enable the Integration sensor in your installation, add the following to your configuration.yamlThe configuration.yaml file is the main configuration file for Home Assistant. It lists the integrations to be loaded and their specific configurations. In some cases, the configuration needs to be edited manually directly in the configuration.yaml file. Most integrations can be configured in the UI. [Learn more] file:

# Example configuration.yaml entry
binary_sensor:
  - platform: threshold
    entity_id: sensor.random
    lower: 20

Configuration Variables

Looking for your configuration file?
entity_id string Required

The entity to monitor. Only sensors are supported.

device_class string (Optional)

Sets the class of the device, changing the device state and icon that is displayed on the frontend.

lower float (Optional)

The lower threshold which the observed value is compared against.

upper float (Optional)

The upper threshold which the observed value is compared against.

hysteresis float (Optional, default: 0.0)

The distance the observed value must be from the threshold before the state is changed.

name string (Optional, default: Threshold)

Name of the sensor to use in the frontend.

Matrix of state change behavior

Sensor value rising

Set Turns on when Turns off when
only upper sensor > (upper + hyst) never
only lower never sensor > (lower + hyst)
upper & lower sensor > (lower + hyst) sensor > (upper + hyst)

Sensor value falling

Set Turns on when Turns off when
only upper never sensor < (upper - hyst)
only lower sensor < (lower - hyst) never
upper & lower sensor < (upper - hyst) sensor < (lower - hyst)

Examples

Is the temperature rising or falling

The hysteresis parameter can be used in this use-case to avoid frequent state changes around the maximum or the minimum of a temperature curve. We also have to utilize the derivative sensor for this use-case:

sensor:  
  - platform: derivative # will be positive for rising temperatures and negative for falling temperatures
    source: sensor.temperature
    unit_time: min
    name: temperature derivative
    time_window: 00:05:00
binary_sensor:
  - platform: threshold # will switch state not at 0°C/min but
                        # will switch on when value rises above 0.1°C/min
                        # will switch off when value sinks below -0.1°C/min
    entity_id: sensor.temperature_derivative
    upper: 0
    hysteresis: 0.1 # sensor 
    name: temperature rising