I recently upgraded my attic setup to include a smart electrical heater, aiming to optimize both comfort and efficiency. My primary goal was to integrate this heater into my existing smart home ecosystem using Lovelace. I wanted something versatile—something that could handle both long-term use for when I’m in the attic and quick, timer-based activation for speeding up laundry drying.
After some research, I realized I needed to create two separate buttons in Lovelace: one for manual on/off control and another for a timer function. The challenge was figuring out how to set this up without duplicating the entity or causing conflicts. I tried copying the entity in my configuration.yaml, which worked in creating two distinct heater entities, but the timer functionality wasn’t responding as expected.
Through trial and error, I discovered that integrating the timer component required a more nuanced approach. I referenced the official Home Assistant timer documentation and set up a test timer with a 30-second duration. Then, I created an automation to trigger this timer when the ‘Heater (timed)’ entity was activated. While this didn’t work initially, the process taught me a lot about how automations and timers interact in Home Assistant.
I’m now exploring alternative methods, such as using MQTT triggers or custom Lovelace cards, to achieve the desired functionality. This project has been a great learning experience, and I’m excited to share my progress and seek advice from the community. If anyone has successfully implemented a similar setup, I’d love to hear about your approach!