trying to change target hours with automation what am I doing wrong

[paddywwoof]

I've gone round in quite a few circles but the only thing that seems to work is this.

- id: '1762169566897'
  alias: Immersion Change Run Time
  description: ''
  triggers:
  - trigger: state
    entity_id:
    - input_number.immersion_on_time
    for:
      hours: 0
      minutes: 0
      seconds: 10
  conditions: []
  actions:
  - action: target_timeframes.update_target_timeframe_config
    metadata: {}
    data:
      target_hours: '{{ states(''input_number.immersion_on_time'') }}'
    target:
      entity_id: binary_sensor.target_timeframes_octopus_energy_import_immersion_on
  mode: single

Really I want to calculate: immersion_on_time = (60.0 - sensor.immersion_cylinder_temperature) // 8 * 0.5 if sensor.immersion_cylinder_temperature < 60.0 else 0.0 (actual text involved various {{, '. float(, states( etc)

Is it just not possible to use the state of entities apart from the trigger in homeassistant automations? Obviously I can probably set an automation to run every *:58:00 to recalculate immersion_on_time but it seems complicated, is this the standard approach?

Paddy

[paddywwoof]

OK, so my 'obviously... probably' might not not be true, though that seems hard to believe. I've just tried this (and many variations) and singularly failed to 'automatically' update an input_number is this not possible?

- id: '1761728245727'
  alias: Battery AutoChange Charge Time
  description: ''
  triggers:
  - trigger: time
    at: '23:08:00'
  conditions: []
  actions:
    - action: input_number.set_value
      target:
        entity_id: input_number.battery_charge_time
      data:
        value: "{{ ((90.0 - float(states('sensor.battery_soc')) // 40) * 0.5 + 0.5 if float(states('sensor.battery_soc')) < 90.0 else 0.0 }}"
  mode: single

battery_charge_time and immersion_on_time basically follow the same logic but with different calculations for the time they need to be on.

PS or with

  triggers:
  - trigger: state
    entity_id:
      - sensor.battery_soc

[paddywwoof]

Answering my own question here: I needed to set up template sensor that was driven by the immersion cylinder temperature (or battery SOC) in configuration.yaml (actually in templates.yaml with a line in configuration.yaml
template: !include templates.yaml)

- sensor:
    - name: "battery_charge_time"
      unique_id: "battery_charge_time"
      unit_of_measurement: "h"
      state: >
        {% set soc = states('sensor.battery_soc') | float %}

        {{ ((100.0 - soc) // 30) * 0.5 }}
- sensor:
    - name: "immersion_on_time"
      unique_id: "immersion_on_time"
      unit_of_measurement: "h"
      state: >
        {% set tmp = states('sensor.immersion_cylinder_temperature') | float %}

        {{ ((60.0 - tmp) // 10) * 0.5 if tmp < 60.0 else 0.0 }}

and then the action: target_timeframes.update_target_timeframe_config is triggered by and uses the state of sensor.immersion_on_time

The other thing I found I had to do, that might be a figment of my messing around or might actually be necessary, is to put values in the Start time and an End time attributes of the target timeframe. I also set them up with All existing target rates in the past and not re-evaluate multiple times per day