Understanding Relaxation

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Relaxation is the automatic filter-loosening mechanism that ensures your Best/Peak Price periods always find results — even on days with unusual price patterns.

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What Is Relaxation?

Sometimes, strict filters find too few periods (or none). Relaxation automatically loosens filters until a minimum number of periods is found.

How to Enable

Show YAML: Enable Relaxation

enable_min_periods_best: true
min_periods_best: 2 # Try to find at least 2 periods per day
relaxation_attempts_best: 11 # Flex levels to test (default: 11 steps = 22 filter combinations)

Good news: Relaxation is enabled by default with sensible settings. Most users don't need to change anything here!

Set the matching relaxation_attempts_peak value when tuning Peak Price periods. Both sliders accept 1-12 attempts, and the default of 11 flex levels translates to 22 filter-combination tries (11 flex levels × 2 filter combos) for each of Best and Peak calculations. Lower it for quick feedback, or raise it when either sensor struggles to hit the minimum-period target on volatile days.

Why Relaxation Is Better Than Manual Tweaking

Problem with manual settings:

• You set flex to 25% → Works great on Monday (volatile prices)
• Same 25% flex on Tuesday (flat prices) → Finds "best price" periods that aren't really cheap
• You're stuck with one setting for all days

Solution with relaxation:

• Monday (volatile): Uses flex 15% (original) → Finds 2 perfect periods ✓
• Tuesday (flat): Escalates to flex 21% → Finds 2 decent periods ✓
• Wednesday (mixed): Uses flex 18% → Finds 2 good periods ✓

Each day gets exactly the flexibility it needs!

How It Works (Adaptive Matrix)

Relaxation uses a matrix approach - trying N flexibility levels (your configured relaxation attempts) with 2 filter combinations per level. With the default of 11 attempts, that means 11 flex levels × 2 filter combinations = 22 total filter-combination tries per day; fewer attempts mean fewer flex increases, while more attempts extend the search further before giving up.

Important: The flexibility increment is fixed at 3% per step (hard-coded for reliability). This means:

• Base flex 15% → 18% → 21% → 24% → ... → 48% (with 11 attempts)
• Base flex 20% → 23% → 26% → 29% → ... → 50% (with 11 attempts)

Phase Matrix

For each day, the system tries:

Enlarge

Each attempt adds +3% flexibility and tries two filter combinations. The system stops as soon as enough periods are found — it doesn't keep trying the full matrix.

Choosing the Number of Attempts

• Default (11 attempts) balances speed and completeness for most grids (22 combinations per day for both Best and Peak)
• Lower (4-8 attempts) if you only want mild relaxation and keep processing time minimal (reaches ~27-39% flex)
• Higher (12 attempts) for extremely volatile days when you must reach near the 50% maximum (24 combinations)
• Remember: each additional attempt adds two more filter combinations because every new flex level still runs both filter overrides (original + level=any)

Per-Day Independence

Critical: Each day relaxes independently:

Show formula: Each day relaxes independently

Day 1: Finds 2 periods with flex 15% (original) → No relaxation needed
Day 2: Needs flex 21% + level=any → Uses relaxed settings
Day 3: Finds 2 periods with flex 15% (original) → No relaxation needed

Why? Price patterns vary daily. Some days have clear cheap/expensive windows (strict filters work), others don't (relaxation needed).

Diagnosing Relaxation Behavior

Check the period sensor attributes to understand what happened:

Show YAML: Diagnosing Relaxation Behavior

# Entity: binary_sensor.<home_name>_best_price_period

relaxation_active: true                           # This day needed relaxation
relaxation_level: "price_diff_18.0%+level_any"    # Found at 18% flex, level filter removed
min_periods_configured: 2                         # Your target
period_count_today: 3                             # What was actually found today

Attribute	Meaning
relaxation_active: false	Original filters were sufficient
relaxation_active: true	Filters were loosened to find enough periods
relaxation_level	Shows exactly which flex% and filter combo succeeded
relaxation_incomplete: true	All attempts exhausted, still short of target
flat_days_detected: 1	Uniform prices → target reduced to 1 (expected)

See also: Period Calculation — Troubleshooting for more diagnostic guidance.