Automation: add action before trigger

Configuration
,
1

HI,

have this automation:

party_on:

  - alias: 'Turn Party Mode On'
    id: 'Turn Party Mode On'
    initial_state: 'on'
    trigger:
      platform: time
      seconds: '/3'
    condition:
      condition: state
      entity_id: input_boolean.home_mode_party
      state: 'on'
    action:
      - service: light.turn_on
        entity_id: 
          - light.buffet
          - light.kist
          - light.home_theater
        data_template:
          rgb_color: ['{{ (range(0, 255)|random) }}', '{{ (range(0, 255)|random) }}', '{{ (range(0, 255)|random) }}']
          brightness: 200

party_off:

  - alias: 'Turn Party Mode Off'
    id: 'Turn Party Mode Off'
    initial_state: 'on'
    trigger:
      platform: state
      entity_id: input_boolean.home_mode_party
      to: 'off'
    action:
      service: light.turn_off
      entity_id: 
        - light.buffet
        - light.kist
        - light.home_theater

which is working fine (though id love to create just one on/off but thats another challenge.
the thing is, this is driving my hassio/Hue integrations into timing issues, since I also have an automation.sense_lights_change that listens to the state of all lights, and runs 2 python scripts when a state-change has been detected.

Id like to disable this automation when party mode is set to On, and re-enable it when party mode is Off again.

Since the party mode automation is triggered as you can see above, it runs each 3 seconds, conditioned by the boolean being on, i’m a bit puzzled how to add the homeassistant.turn_off: automation.sense_lights_change action to it
 If I simply add it to the list of actions, it would get executed each 3 seconds

Id need to add the action before the current trigger :wink:

What would be the best way of changing this setup, maybe create an intermediary script? boolean flipped, automation_sens_lights flipped, and then party on, an vice versa? would also mean the condition could be taken out here?

please have a look?
thx,
Marius

2

If you don’t want to go for example the AppDaemon way, then you could try the timer component:

Party_on starts a 3 sec. timer (and disables your other automation). The timer will trigger modification of your lights and restart itself if the party is still running.
Party_off reenables the other automation.

3

Or you could add another condition to your sense_lights_change automation so that it only fires when party mode is off, like this:

condition:
      condition: state
      entity_id: input_boolean.home_mode_party
      state: 'off'

Sebastian

1 Like
4

ah, so simple

thanks!

5

yes, i think thats what i was trying to establish
 @sebk-666 suggested something very elegant and simple though, which will be quite easy to implement

thanks all!

6

I’m not sure if you were aware that you can specifiy multiple conditions and combine them with and/or clauses (conditions).
So if you already have a condition in you sense_lights_change automation, you’d need to “and” it with the party mode check condition, e.g.:

condition:
      - condition: and
        conditions:
        - condition: state
          entity_id: input_boolean.home_mode_party
          state: off
        - condition: state
          entity_id: ...
          state: ...
        - condition: ...

Sebastian

7

sure, i am, cool.
but thanks for making this very clear.

i was wondering if we can write a script with the timing as in the automation above.
that way I would create a switch instead of a boolean, with turn_on and turn_off scripts, one of these containing the timed lights.

switch.party
turn_on:
turn-off motion sensors
turn-off automation
turn-on lights script
turn_off:
turn-off lights
turn-on automation

etc etc

8

conditions ‘and’ by default. You really only need to include ‘and’ if combining it with ‘or’ to make complex / nested conditions

9

You’re right, thanks for reminding me :slight_smile:
I usually explicitely write the and condition clause anyway, because that way I find it easier to read - and while experimenting with clauses you only need to swap the and for an or instead of having to reindent all the code to fit a new clause.

Sebastian

10

If you exchange “lights script” with 3-sec-timer, you’re done :wink:

11

hmm, how exactly? :wink:

the Turn party Mode On automations would have to be turned into the script with the timer


was thinking along the lines of this switch:

switch:
  - platform: template
    switches:
      mode_party:
        friendly_name: Party mode switch
        value_template: >
          {{ is_state('input_select.mode', 'Party') }}
        turn_on:
          - service: script.party_on
          - service: script.party_on_2
          - service: script.party_on_3        
        turn_off:
          - service: script.party_off
          - service: script.party_off_2
          - service: script.party_off_3
12

You would have to take the “action” part of your old “Turn Party Mode On” automation and bind it to the timer.finished event of a new 3-sec timer. Additionally, add timer.start to the actions.

Turn_on would now run timer.start and Turn_off would run timer.cancel.

But eventually you’ll end up with the same scenario that you have currently, just a little different behaviour in the background. I’d go the AppDaemon route and write it down the Pythonic way :wink: