Add a charging status attribute to the battery+ entity

[uvjim]

Checklist

• I have filled out the template to the best of my ability.
• This only contains 1 feature request (if you have multiple feature requests, open one feature request for each feature request).
• This issue is not a duplicate feature request of previous feature requests.

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Would it be possible to add a charging status attribute to the battery+ attribute (assuming that the original device has such an entity)?

Use case: using a heading card with entities in it. When adding the battery+ entity to show the battery level (in this case a remote control) it correctly shows the percentage and an icon. However the icon does not reflect the charging state and as there is no attribute I can't add it alongside the status percentage.

Describe the solution you'd like

To add the charging status entity value as an attribute to the battery+ entity (assuming that there is a charging status entity).

Describe alternatives you've considered

In the above use case I have tried putting the charging status entity alongside the battery+ entity but the spacing is off and I don't want to get into using card_mod to handle that.

Additional context

I have a dashboard that shows activity status, sleep timers etc for the media playing in particular rooms. The remote control is an Unfolded Circle and the integration for that exposed a charging status entity.

[andrew-codechimp]

Hi,

I also have an Unfolded Circle remote so see exactly what you mean.

Not an easy one to add, there's entity detail built into HA to be able to determine what is the battery, but charging is just a boolean and it's id will vary per integration, plus some integrations translate their entity id's, so there's no way to determine it easily.

What I may be able to do is add a custom template setting returning a boolean to indicate the charging status and append an attribute and change the icon based on that. A bit like the custom battery low template.

I've been wanting to move some of these more niche settings into an advanced section anyway so I'll add this to the list when I do that.

[uvjim]

That would be ideal. That way I can have the best of both worlds, the icon, percentage and the charging status text. Just so you can see the UI and where it would fit in, see the screenshot below.

The refresh icon is because occasionally statuses with the remote/media players gets out of sync. There can also be another icon on that row that allows me to play the live TV channel from downstairs, upstairs (both use Kodi for live TV).

[andrew-codechimp]

Thanks for the screenshot, it's sort of similar to how I'd want to use it as well.
No promises on when I'll get round to this as it's not a small change.

[andrew-codechimp]

Just an update on this, I have noticed that the MobileApp (the one the HA mobile app presents sensors with) does change it's battery to show it's charging, which is reflected in the Battery+ icon as well.
I've not idea how that integration is doing that but since it's core it must be a standard pattern.
Maybe the Unfolded Circle integration can implement the same?

I still think a charging template could be a good idea so still on the list, but you might get quicker results contacting the Unfolded Circle integration owner.

[uvjim]

Thanks for the update. I'll take a look here at that as well. That would solve the icon thing, but not the attribute spacing (to give both icon and text). Agree with you that the template is still worthwhile to cover that side of things.

I'll check the icons on my side and make sure I see the same as you. Will pick up with UC integration if I do.

[uvjim]

Had a quick check now. I see the same as you for the mobile_app integration. I think that might be similar to the way I handle icons in my integrations - will check on that. If so, it should be simple enough to implement in the unfoldedcircle one.

I'll check and submit a pull request.

[uvjim]

I'll close this off. It doesn't really belong with the integration as alreay proven. I haven't had time to look at it in the UC integration yet either. The author has however added dynamic icons for the entity states, but that currently covers only battery levels for that particular sensor.