A jinja macro to display the difference between two datetimes in a readable format
I hear you thinking, there is already a relative_time filter/function in Home Assistant. And of course this is true, but it only returns the text in English, and always only returns the biggest time fraction. So this macro supports multiple languages (currently Dutch and English) and has some additional options.
Home Assistant 2023.11 or higher is required to use this macro.
This custom template is compatible with HACS, which means that you can easily download and manage updates for it. Custom templates are supported in HACS 2.0 or when you enable experimental features in the HACS settings of versions prior to 2.0.
For a manual install you can copy the contents of relative_time_plus.jinja to a jinja file in your custom_templates folder.
Run the homeassistant.reload_custom_templates service call to load the file.
Current supported languages:
| Language | Language code | Provided by |
|---|---|---|
| Bulgarian | bg |
Georgi Iliev |
| Czech | cs |
supperka |
| Danish | dk |
C4-Dimitri |
| Dutch | nl |
TheFes |
| English | en |
TheFes |
| Finish | fi |
samhaa |
| French | fr |
Pulpyyyy |
| German | de |
fastlane086 |
| Italian | it |
SiriosDev |
| Norwegian (bokmål) | nb |
bendikrb |
| Norwegian (nynorsk) | nn |
bendikrb |
| Polish | pl |
darylosu |
| Portuguese | pt |
FragMenthor |
| Russian | ru |
wrun |
| Spanish | es |
cvc90 |
| Swedish | sv |
tde01065 |
| Ukranian | uk |
laktiv |
| Vietnamese | vi |
cuongpl |
The only required field is the datetime you want to show as relative time. It can be eiter in the past or future, and you can use a datetime object, a timestamp (integer or float) or anything which can be converted to a datetime object using as_datetime.
Other optional fields are:
| name | type | default | example | description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
parts |
integer | 1 |
3 |
The number of time fractions which should be used |
not_use |
list or string | ['millisecond'] |
['yr', 'minute'] |
Provide the time periods you don't want to use in the output, by default only milliseconds are excluded. You can provide a list or a comma separated string, so 'yr, month' and ['yr', 'month'] will both work. Possible values are year, month, week, day, hour, minute, second, millisecond or the abbreviated versions yr, mth, wk, day, hr, min, sec, ms. |
always_show |
list or string | [] |
['yr', 'mth', 'day'] |
Provide the time periods you always want to show, even when they are zero. With the example the output could be "0 years, 0 months and 19 days". Use 'all' to always show all time parts. You can use not_use to exclude time parts from 'all' |
time |
boolean | true |
false |
Set to false to ignore time and only compare on date |
abbr |
boolean | false |
true |
Set to true to use the abbreviated phrases |
language |
string | "en" |
"nl" |
The country code (eg dk for Denmark) for the language to be used for the output |
compare_date |
datetime or timestamp | now() |
12345 |
The datetime to compare the other datetime to |
round_mode |
string | "floor" |
"commmon" |
Determines how the last outputted value should be rounded. "common" will round up if the remainder is half or more, "ceil" will always round up if there is a remaining part, "floor" not take the remaining part into account |
Example usage: Using a sensor state:
{% from 'relative_time_plus.jinja' import relative_time_plus %}
{{ relative_time_plus(states('sensor.uptime'), parts=3, not_use=['week', 'millisecond'], time=true, abbr=true, language='nl') }}This will output something like
10 dg, 2 u en 7 min
Using a last_changed datetime of an entity:
{% from 'relative_time_plus.jinja' import relative_time_plus %}
{{ relative_time_plus(states.light.office.last_changed, 2) }}This will output something like
3 hours and 1 minute
Using the always_show parameter (remove the compare_date parameter to use the current date):
{% set current_date = '2023-12-25' %}
{{ relative_time_plus('2018-12-25', compare_date=current_date, not_use='wk', always_show=['yr', 'mth', 'day'], parts=3) }}This will output
5 years, 0 months and 0 days
Using a date string:
{% from 'relative_time_plus.jinja' import relative_time_plus %}
{{ relative_time_plus('2023-01-01', parts=2, time=false, not_use=['wk']) }}This will output something like (assuming the current date is 9th of April 2023)
3 months and 8 days
You can either issue a PR with the language phrases, or create an issue with all the required phrases (so singular, plural and abbreviated per time section, a combine word and an error text) in an issue.