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Statistics

The statistics integration observes the state of a source sensor and provides aggregated statistical characteristics about its recent past. This integration can be useful in automation, for example, to trigger an action when the air humidity in the bathroom settles after a hot shower or when the number of brewed coffees over a day gets too high.

The statistics sensor updates with every update of the source sensor, for which the numeric sensor and binary_sensor are supported. The time period and/or number of recent state changes, which should be considered, must be given in configuration. Check the configuration section below for details.

Assuming the recorder integration is running, historical sensor data is read from the database on startup and is available immediately after a restart of the platform. If the recorder integration is not running, it can take some time for the sensor to start reporting data because some characteristics calculations require more than one source sensor value.

Tip

The statistics integration is different to Long-term Statistics. More details on the differences can be found in the 2021.8.0 release notes.

Configuration

To add the Statistics helper to your Home Assistant instance, use this My button:

Manual configuration steps

If the above My button doesn’t work, you can also perform the following steps manually:

Browse to your Home Assistant instance.
Go to Settings > Devices & Services.
At the top of the screen, select the tab: Helpers.
In the bottom right corner, select the Create helper button.
From the list, select Statistics.
Follow the instructions on screen to complete the setup.

Further information about these configuration options can be found under the YAML configuration

Name

The name the sensor should have.

Entity

The entity that provides the input. Numeric sensor and binary_sensor are supported.

State_characteristic

List of statistical characteristics to choose from.

Sampling size

Maximum number of source sensor measurements stored.

Max age

Maximum age of source sensor measurements stored.

Keep last sample

Defines whether the most recent sampled value should be preserved regardless of the “Max age” setting.

Percentile

Only relevant in combination with the percentile characteristic. Must be a value between 1 and 99.

Precision

Defines the number of decimal places of the calculated sensor value.

Characteristics

The following options for the configuration parameter state_characteristic are available as staticical characteristics. Pay close attention to the correct configuration of sampling_size and/or max_age, as most characteristics are directly influenced by these settings.

Numeric Source Sensor

The following are supported for sensor source sensors state_characteristic:

State Characteristic	Description
`average_linear`	The average value of stored measurements under consideration of the time distances between them. A linear interpolation is applied per measurement pair. Suited to observe a source sensor with frequent, non-periodic sensor updates and when continuous behavior is represented by the measurements (e.g. your electricity consumption). WARNING: This type of average may show unexpected behavior in cases where values remain stable (e.g. an equally spaced sequence of t1:0 -> t2:0 -> t3:0 -> t4:0 -> t5:10 would produce an average of 5 instead of 1,25 because the non-changing zeros in the middle (t2 to t4) are being filtered out by Home Assistant and so the actually computed curve already starts rising at t1 instead of staying flat until t4). Accordingly, this function is only making sense in the context of noisy sensors that keep changing constantly.
`average_step`	The average value of stored measurements under consideration of the time distances between them. LOCF (last observation carried forward weighting) is applied, meaning, that the old value is assumed between two measurements. This is a better fit to how Home Assistant deals with constant values (compared to the linear function) and it is also better fitting to sensors that are switching between stable phases (e.g. a heating level set to either 1, 2 or 3). WARNING: Even when a time interval is specified by the max age parameter, the average is not necessarily matching the average over that whole interval (e.g. when values were removed due to the sampling size limit).
`average_timeless`	The average value of stored measurements. This method assumes that all measurements are equally spaced and, therefore, time is ignored and a simple average of values is computed. Equal to `mean`.
`change_sample`	The average change per sample. The difference between the newest and the oldest measurement is divided by the number of in-between measurements (n-1).
`change_second`	The average change per second. The difference between the newest and the oldest measurement is divided by seconds between them.
`change`	The difference between the newest and the oldest measurement.
`count`	The number of stored source sensor readings. This number is limited by `sampling_size` and can be low within the bounds of `max_age`.
`datetime_newest`	The timestamp of the newest measurement.
`datetime_oldest`	The timestamp of the oldest measurement.
`datetime_value_max`	The timestamp of the numerically biggest measurement.
`datetime_value_min`	The timestamp of the numerically smallest measurement.
`distance_95_percent_of_values`	A statistical indicator derived from the standard deviation of an assumed normal distribution. 95% of all stored values fall into a range of returned size.
`distance_99_percent_of_values`	A statistical indicator derived from the standard deviation of an assumed normal distribution. 99% of all stored values fall into a range of returned size.
`distance_absolute`	The difference or “spread” between the extreme values of measurements. Equals `value_max` minus `value_min`.
`mean`	The average value computed for all measurements. Be aware that this does not consider uneven time intervals between measurements.
`mean_circular`	The circular mean for angular measurements (e.g. wind direction). Assumes that measurements are expressed in degrees (e.g., 180° or -90°), and outputs the mean in positive degrees (0-360°).
`median`	The median value computed for all measurements.
`noisiness`	A simplified version of a signal-to-noise ratio. A high value indicates a quickly changing source sensor value, a small value will be seen for a steady source sensor. The absolute change between subsequent source sensor measurement values is summed up and divided by the number of intervals.
`percentile`	Percentiles divide the range of a distribution of all considered source sensor measurements into 100 continuous intervals of equal probability. The characteristic calculates the value for which a given percentage of source sensor measurements are smaller in value. The 20th percentile is the value below which 20 percent of the measurements may be found. The additional configuration parameters `percentile` is needed, see below.
`standard_deviation`	The standard deviation of an assumed normal distribution from all measurements.
`sum`	The mathematical sum of all source sensor measurement values within the given time and sampling size limits.
`sum_differences`	The mathematical sum of differences between subsequent source sensor measurement values within the given time and sampling size limits.
`sum_differences_nonnegative`	The mathematical sum of non-negative differences between subsequent source sensor measurement values within the given time and sampling size limits. The characteristic assumes that the source sensor value can only increase, but might occasionally be reset to zero. If a value is smaller than the previous value, the function assumes the previous value should have been a zero.
`total`	The mathematical sum of all source sensor measurement values within the given time and sampling size limits. Equal to `sum`.
`value_max`	The largest value among the number of measurements.
`value_min`	The smallest value among the number of measurements.
`variance`	The variance of an assumed normal distribution from all measurements.

Binary Source Sensor

The following are supported for binary_sensor source sensors state_characteristic:

State Characteristic	Description
`average_step`	A percentage of time across all stored measurements, in which the binary source sensor was “On”. If over the course of one hour, movement was detected for 6 minutes, the `average_step` is 10%.
`average_timeless`	The percentage of stored measurements, for which the binary source sensor was “On”. Time in on/off states is ignored. If over the course of one hour, a single movement was detected, the `average_timeless` is 33.3% (assuming the stored measurements “Off”, “On”, “Off”). Equal to `mean`.
`count`	The number of stored source sensor readings.
`count_on`	The number of stored source sensor readings with the value “On”. Be aware that only value changes are registered by default, except if the source sensor has the property `force_update` set to true.
`count_off`	The number of stored source sensor readings with the value “Off”. Be aware that only value changes are registered by default, except if the source sensor has the property `force_update` set to true.
`datetime_newest`	The timestamp of the newest measurement.
`datetime_oldest`	The timestamp of the oldest measurement.
`mean`	The percentage of stored measurements, for which the binary source sensor was “On”. Time in on/off states is ignored. If over the course of one hour, a single movement was detected, the `average_timeless` is 33.3% (assuming the stored measurements “Off”, “On”, “Off”).

Attributes

A statistics sensor presents the following attributes for context about its internal status.

Attribute	Description
`age_coverage_ratio`	Only when `max_age` is defined. Ratio (0.0-1.0) of the configured age of source sensor measurements considered (time period `max_age`) covered in-between the oldest and newest stored values. A low number can indicate an unwanted mismatch between the configured limits and the source sensor behavior. The value 1.0 represents at least two values covering the full time period. Value 0 is the result of only one measurement considered. The sensor turns `Unknown` if no measurements are stored.
`buffer_usage_ratio`	Only when `sampling_size` is defined. Ratio (0.0-1.0) of the configured buffer size used by the stored source sensor measurements. A low number can indicate an unwanted mismatch between the configured limits and the source sensor behavior. The value 1.0 represents a full buffer, value 0 stands for an empty one.
`source_value_valid`	True/false indication whether the source sensor supplies valid values to the statistics sensor (judged by the last value received).

YAML configuration

Define a statistics sensor by adding lines similar to the following examples to your configuration.yaml:

sensor:
  - platform: statistics
    name: "Bathroom humidity mean over last 24 hours"
    entity_id: sensor.bathroom_humidity
    state_characteristic: mean
    max_age:
      hours: 24

  - platform: statistics
    entity_id: binary_sensor.movement
    state_characteristic: count_on
    sampling_size: 100

  - platform: statistics
    name: "Bathroom humidity change over 5 minutes"
    entity_id: sensor.bathroom_humidity
    state_characteristic: change
    max_age:
      minutes: 5
    sampling_size: 50
    precision: 1

Configuration Variables

Looking for your configuration file?

entity_id string Required

The source sensor to observe and compute statistical characteristics for. Only sensors and binary sensors are supported.

name string (Optional, default: Stats)

Name of the new statistics sensor.

state_characteristic string Required

The characteristic that should be used as the state of the statistics sensor (see tables above).

sampling_size integer (Optional)

Maximum number of source sensor measurements stored. Be sure to choose a reasonably high number or omit if the samples should be driven by max_age instead. A statistics sensor requires sampling_size, max_age, or both to be defined.

max_age time (Optional)

Maximum age of source sensor measurements stored. Setting this to a time period will cause older values to be discarded. If omitted, the number of considered source sensor measurements is limited by sampling_size only. Set both parameters appropriately to create suited limits for your use case. The sensor value will become unknown if the source sensor is not updated within the time period. A statistics sensor requires sampling_size, max_age, or both to be defined.

keep_last_sample boolean (Optional, default: false)

Defines whether the most recent sampled value should be preserved regardless of the max_age setting.

percentile integer (Optional, default: 50)

Only relevant in combination with the percentile characteristic. Must be a value between 1 and 99. The value defines the percentile value to consider. The 25th percentile is also known as the first quartile, the 50th percentile as the median.

precision integer (Optional, default: 2)

Defines the number of decimal places of the calculated sensor value.

unique_id string (Optional)

An ID that uniquely identifies the statistics sensor. Set this to a unique value to allow customization through the UI. Change the unique ID after switching the state_characteristic of a previously configured sensor, to start with a fresh recorder history.

An important note on max_age and sampling_size

If both max_age and sampling_size are given, the considered samples are those within the max_age time window but limited to the number of sampling_size newest samples. Specify a wide-enough sampling_size if using an extended max_age (e.g., when looking for max_age 1 hour, a sensor that produces one measurement per minute should have at least a sampling_size of 60 to use all samples within the max_age timeframe.)

If only sampling_size is given there is no time limit. If only max_age is given the considered number of samples is unlimited.

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