I have Ikea stuff; lights, switches, motion sensors, etc. but I just bought a Zigbee coordinator and joined them there instead (ZHA). With Ikea you just added 1-10 lights and a switch to a group and they worked as expected. But I can’t for the life of me understand the basics of this in HA. Every youtube video is complex, or old so the UI is different, or has “5 things that changes everything”.
Let’s stay within the realm of 1 light and 1 switch (it can dim up/down).
Can I create 1 automation to control 1 light and dim it, in the UI?
Or do I have to create 4 automations for that (1 to turn on, 1 for off, 1 for dim down, 1 for up)?
If you’ve only just started, I’d say create four automations, and when they’re all working as expected, look at ways of combining them.
Use the UI editor and when each one is working, look at the yaml to become familiar with it.
You don’t have to learn yaml at all, but it’s very useful - not least because you can paste it into a forum post for other people to correct/copy.
There are several ways to do nearly everything. What matters is that the lights go on and off - how you make that happen is entirely up to you. Some people like rabbit holes, others find them dark and depressing.
An automation employs a trigger. When the trigger fires (for reasons you choose like at a certain time, when motion is detected, when a door is opened, when someone arrives home, etc) it proceeds to execute one or more actions.
What do you foresee will be the trigger for your automation that dims a light?
What will be the trigger to turn off the light?
NOTE
If you simply want to dim a light from the UI, no automation is required.
Automations can be created using the Automation Editor in Visual mode (knowledge of YAML isn’t required).
I manage a couple of Azure tenants and there’s so much old Groups, Policies, scripts and automations that whenever something breaks it usually ends up in hours or days of troubleshooting. It feels like this easily becomes that unless you spend a lot of time and thinking at documenting your hobby?
I would have hoped it was easier than this to set up a light switch.
For your info, I have an Ikea trådfri on/off switch. The 2 buttons turn on or off, and each can be held for dimming.
For clarification:
I don’t want to use the HA UI at all to control my home. I meant I wish there was an easy-as-ikea-app way to set up a light and switch from the UI, instead of YAML code.
You don’t have to use the UI to control your home if you don’t want to.
You do have to create automations. The UI we’re referring to is the editor in the HA app used to do this. They’re really no more than sets of rules - when this happens, do that. No yaml if you don’t want to bother with it.
I am unfamiliar with the IKEA app so I can’t comment on it. If there’s something specific in it that you would like to see replicated in Home Assistant’s Automation Editor, post a Feature Request.
Otherwise, as I and others have explained, the Automation Editor in Visual mode (its default mode) allows you to create an automation visually (i.e. not using YAML).
Your originally stated goal of turning a light on/off is a bit of an understatement. In fact, you want to use an IKEA E1743 to control the light. That involves an automation that can detect the E1743’s transmitted button events. Based on the received event, the automation determines how to control the light
All of this can be done with an automation (visually with the Automation Editor). However, if you find it too challenging, you can simplify the process by importing one of several available Blueprints other users have created for the IKEA E1743 Dimmer Switch. A blueprint lets you visually select what you want to achieve and it builds the automation for you.