Binary sensor question:)

[jascdk]

The Feature

Hi. Im a whole new user of this project, and for now i am having pretty good results with it. Im using it for a DIEHL Hydrus water meter with a LCD display. For now im just using it to read the values - it works quite good - i may be experiment with some other lightning options, because some of some of the digits are sometimes hard to read right. BUT the LCD has some things to it - if water is flowing it is showing a small + (Plus) sign in the left of the display. Would it be possible to "record" this plus sign and interpret it like a binary sensor, so i get a input of if water is flowing or not? could in some way be used for a ALERT if there is a leak ?

[stefan131]

The default interval for checking the water meter is 10 minutes, if you use this default and record this plus sign as a binary sensor you would get unexpected results. If the interval happens to be at a time when you're washing your hands for example it will show the tap is open for 10 minutes while in reality it could be 2 seconds.

While this interval is configurable, I doubt many people will think it's worth reevaluating every minute to see if the tap is open. The same could be achieved by calculating the amount of water used in a period of time, this is also more reliable for leak detection

edit: if this issue gets picked up you may be able to use something like a light intensity sensor taped to the part of the lcd that shows the + icon. That is if it won't just be support for a reed switch but for analog readings too