Home Assistant

Counter

The Counter integration allows one to count occurrences fired by automations.

Configuration

The preferred way to configure counter helpers is via the user interface. To add one, go to Settings -> Devices & Services -> Helpers and click the add button; next choose the Counter option.

To be able to add Helpers via the user interface you should have default_config: in your configuration.yaml, it should already be there by default unless you removed it. If you removed default_config: from your configuration, you must add counter: to your configuration.yaml first, then you can use the UI.

Counters can also be configured via configuration.yaml:

# Example configuration.yaml entry
counter:
  my_custom_counter:
    initial: 30
    step: 1

Configuration Variables

Looking for your configuration file?
[alias] map Required

Alias for the counter. Multiple entries are allowed. alias should be replaced by the user for their actual value.

name string (Optional)

Friendly name of the counter.

initial integer (Optional, default: 0)

Initial value (0 or positive integer) when Home Assistant starts or the counter is reset.

restore boolean (Optional, default: true)

Try to restore the last known value when Home Assistant starts.

step integer (Optional, default: 1)

Incremental/step value for the counter.

minimum integer (Optional)

Minimum value the counter will have

maximum integer (Optional)

Maximum value the counter will have

icon icon (Optional)

Icon to display for the counter.

Pick an icon that from Material Design Icons to use for your input and prefix the name with mdi:. For example mdi:car, mdi:ambulance or mdi:motorbike.

Restore State

This integration will automatically restore the state it had prior to Home Assistant stopping as long as your entity has restore set to true, which is the default. To disable this feature, set restore to false.

If restore is set to true, the initial value will only be used when no previous state is found or when the counter is reset.

Services

Available services: increment, decrement, reset, and set_value.

Service counter.increment

Increments the counter with 1 or the given value for the steps.

Service data attribute Optional Description
entity_id no Name of the entity to take action, e.g., counter.my_custom_counter.

Service counter.decrement

Decrements the counter with 1 or the given value for the steps.

Service data attribute Optional Description
entity_id no Name of the entity to take action, e.g., counter.my_custom_counter.

Service counter.reset

With this service the counter is reset to its initial value.

Service data attribute Optional Description
entity_id no Name of the entity to take action, e.g., counter.my_custom_counter.

Service counter.set_value

This service allows setting the counter to a specific value.

Service data attribute Optional Description
entity_id no Name of the entity to take action, e.g., counter.my_custom_counter.
value yes Set the counter to the given value.

Use the service

Select the Services tab from within Developer Tools. Choose counter 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": "counter.my_custom_counter"
}

Examples

Counting Home Assistant errors

To use a counter to count errors as caught by Home Assistant, you need to add fire_event: true to your configuration.yaml, like so:

# Example configuration.yaml entry
system_log:
  fire_event: true

Error counting - example configuration

# Example configuration.yaml entry
automation:
- id: 'errorcounterautomation'
  alias: "Error Counting Automation"
  trigger:
    platform: event
    event_type: system_log_event
    event_data:
      level: ERROR
  action:
    service: counter.increment
    target:
      entity_id: counter.error_counter
    
counter:
  error_counter:
    name: Errors
    icon: mdi:alert