Press and hold down key

[gitolicious]

Describe the bug
How can I press and hold a key? For example I would like to hold down the space bar for five seconds. Would have expected this to work:

button:
  - platform: template
    name: "Hold Space"
    id: hold_space
    on_press:
      then:
      - ble_keyboard.press:
          id: myblekeyboard
          code: 0x20 # space
      - delay: 5000ms
      - ble_keyboard.release: myblekeyboard

It results in just the space bar being sent and immediately relesed. Did I misunderstand the press function in that it doesn't hold down the key until release is called? When would you use the release function otherwise?

Please complete the following information:

• ESPHome version: 2022.11.5
• Component version: latest? (how to find out? I simply put source: github://dmamontov/esphome-blekeyboard)

[dmamontov]

@gitolicious In your case, a combination should help:

button:
  - platform: template
    name: "Hold Space"
    id: hold_space
    on_press:
      then:
      - ble_keyboard.combination:
         id: myblekeyboard
         delay: 5
         keys:
           - 0x20
           - 0x20

[gitolicious]

I guess for that exact use case it would actually work - at least I can see a lot of space key events when putting 1000 instead of 5) I don't fully understand why this works with space (0x20) but not with "o" where two individual letters are being printed.
Unfortunately there are two extensions I would need for my actual use case:

• I need to hold down Ctrl + Space (push to talk in MS Teams)
• I don't know how long to hold down before releasing the keys (there is a physical button as input)
  Any ideas how to solve that?