Timer

The timer component aims to simplify automations based on (dynamic) durations.

When a timer finishes or gets canceled the corresponding events are fired. This allows you to differentiate if a timer has switched from active to idle because the given duration has elapsed or it has been canceled. To control timers in your automations you can use the services mentioned below. When calling the start service on a timer that is already running, it resets the duration it will need to finish and restart the timer without triggering any events. This for example makes it easy to create timed lights that get triggered by motion.

With the current implementation timers don’t persist over restarts. After a restart they will be idle again, together with their initial configuration.

To add a timer to your installation, add the following to your configuration.yaml file:

# Example configuration.yaml entry
timer:
  laundry:
    duration: '00:01:00'

Configuration variables:

• [alias] (Required): Alias for the timer. Multiple entries are allowed.
  • name (Optional): Friendly name of the timer.
  • duration (Optional): Initial duration in seconds or 00:00:00 when Home Assistant starts. Defaults to 0.
  • icon (Optional): Set a custom icon for the state card.

Pick an icon that you can find on materialdesignicons.com to use for your timer and prefix the name with mdi:. For example mdi:car, mdi:ambulance, or mdi:motorbike.

Events

Services

Service timer.start

Starts or restarts a timer with the provided duration. If no duration is given, it will either restart with its initial value, or continue a paused timer with the remaining duration. If a new duration is provided, this will be the new default for the timer until Home Assistant is restarted (which loads your default values). The duration can be specified as a number of seconds or the easier to read 01:23:45 format.
If no entity_id is given all active timers will be started.

Service timer.pause

Pause a running timer. This will retain the remaining duration for later continuation. If no entity_id is given all active timers will be paused.

Service timer.cancel

Cancel an active timer. This resets the duration to the last known initial value without firing the timer.finished event. If no entity_id is given all active timers will be canceled.

Service timer.finish

Manually finish a running timer earlier than scheduled. If no entity_id is given all active timers will be finished.

Use the service

Select Services from the Developer Tools. Choose timer from the list of Domains, select the Service, enter something like the sample below into the Service Data field, and hit CALL SERVICE.

{
  "entity_id": "timer.timer0"
}

Examples

Set a timer called test to a duration of 30 seconds.

# Example configuration.yaml entry
timer:
  test:
    duration: '00:00:30'

Control a timer from the frontend

# Example automations.yaml entry
- action:
  - service: timer.start
    entity_id: timer.test
  alias: Timerswitch
  id: 'Timerstart'

# Timer is started when the switch pumprun is set to on. 
  trigger: 
    platform: state
    entity_id: switch.pumprun
    to: 'on'

# When timer is stopped, the time run out, another message is sent
- action:
  - service: notify.nma
    data:
      message: "Timer stop"
  alias: Timerstop
  id: 'Timerstop'
  trigger: 
    platform: event
    event_type: timer.finished
    event_data: 
      entity_id: timer.test

Control a timer from the frontend

With the script component you would be able to control a timer (see above for a timer configuration sample) manually.

script:
  start_timer:
    alias: Start timer
    sequence:
      - service: timer.start
        entity_id: timer.test
  pause_timer:
    alias: Pause timer
    sequence:
      - service: timer.pause
        entity_id: timer.test
  cancel_timer:
    alias: Cancel timer
    sequence:
      - service: timer.cancel
        entity_id: timer.test
  finish_timer:
    alias: Finish timer
    sequence:
      - service: timer.finish
        entity_id: timer.test