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.

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:

flowchart TD
    Start["Start: base flex<br/><small>(e.g. 15%)</small>"] --> A1

    subgraph Attempt1["Attempt 1 — flex 15%"]
        A1["Your filters"] -->|not enough| A2["Level = any"]
    end

    A2 -->|not enough| B1

    subgraph Attempt2["Attempt 2 — flex 18%"]
        B1["Your filters"] -->|not enough| B2["Level = any"]
    end

    B2 -->|not enough| C1

    subgraph Attempt3["Attempt 3 — flex 21%"]
        C1["Your filters"] --> C2["Level = any"]
    end

    C1 -->|"✅ enough"| Done
    A1 -->|"✅ enough"| Done
    A2 -->|"✅ enough"| Done
    B1 -->|"✅ enough"| Done
    B2 -->|"✅ enough"| Done
    C2 -->|"✅ / not enough → next …"| Done

    Done["✅ Done<br/><small>stops at first success</small>"]

    style Start fill:#e6f7ff,stroke:#00b9e7,stroke-width:2px
    style Done fill:#e6fff5,stroke:#00c853,stroke-width:2px
    style Attempt1 fill:#f0f9ff,stroke:#00b9e7
    style Attempt2 fill:#fff9e6,stroke:#ffb800
    style Attempt3 fill:#fff0f0,stroke:#ff8a80

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.

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