[Help required] Parallel tasks in pyscript

[Belchy666]

Hello everybody,

first of all I am quite new to python and usually wrote my scripts in javascript for IoBroker. But since I want to switch to HomeAssistant and have some more or less complex scripts written in javascript, I was looking for a way to write scripts with a similar complexity for HA. So this is how I came across pyscript.

Unfortunately, I am now stuck for multiple hours (even with chatGPT) and can not find a solution for my, what I would call, simple first usecase:
To sum up, I want to react to a change of a trigger condition (motion sensor) and then start a timer. This timer should get resetted when the motion sensor detects a motion again during the 30min window. If the timer expires, a light will be turned off.

But until now, I did not even manage to create a parallel running function without blocking the other function. Here is my minimal example:

@state_trigger("motion_detected")
def handle_triggered():
    log.info("Trigger received - create task to run in the background")
    task.create(timer_task())  # Start timer in background
    log.info("This should be printed directly after starting the timer.....")

async def timer_task():
    log.info("5s timer running")
    await asyncio.sleep(5)
    log.info("Timer expired - any action can now be performed here")

What happens is, that the log.info("This should be printed directly after starting the timer.....") is only visible in the protocoll after the 5s timer expires. So basically the timer_task() blocks the handle_triggered() task. Additionally I get an error at the end which says:

2025-07-27 21:14:29.243 ERROR (MainThread) [custom_components.pyscript.function] run_coro: got exception Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/config/custom_components/pyscript/eval.py", line 1984, in call_func
raise TypeError(f"'{func_name}' is not callable (got {func})")
TypeError: '' is not callable (got None)

And I really do not understand why.

So if there is any expert who can help me, I would be really really grateful!

Thanks,

Ben

[dbsdbs93]

Try task.sleep? And review what the Reference doc says about async, just to make sure it aligns with what you expect.

[ALERTua]

I seconds this. If you are new to Python - do not overcomplicate things. Start small, grow big.

[craigbarratt]

The tutorial has some examples that are similar to what you trying to do.

[Belchy666]

Thanks for your help! Task.sleep did work finally!
And also thanks @craigbarratt, I did somehow not see those examples.