Relative Time Plus

A jinja macro to display the difference between two datetimes in a readable format

Why this macro

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.

How to install

Install it in HACS, or 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.

Languages

Current supported languages:

• English - TheFes
• Dutch - TheFes
• Italian - SiriosDev
• German - fastlane086

How to use

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
week	boolean	true	false	Set to false to not split in weeks, but add those to the amount of days
time	boolean	true	false	Set to false to ignore time and only compare on date
verbose	boolean	false	true	Set to true to use the verbose phrases
language	string	"en"	"nl"	The language to be used for the output
compare_date	datetime or timestamp	now()	12345	The datetime to compare the other datetime to

Example usage: Using a sensor state:

{% from 'relative_time_plus.jinja' import relative_time_plus %}
{{ relative_time_plus(states('sensor.uptime'), parts=3, week=false, time=true, verbose=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 a date string:

{% from 'relative_time_plus.jinja' import relative_time_plus %}
{{ relative_time_plus('2023-01-01', parts=2, time=false, week=false) }}

This will output something like (assuming the current date is 9th of April 2023) 3 months and 8 days

My language is not suported

You can either issue a PR with the language phrases, or create an issue with all the required phrases (so singular, plural and verbose per time section, a combine word and an error text) in an issue.