When creating automations, sometimes it’s necessary to create many that do nearly the same thing. Turn the garage lights on when the door opens, turn them off some time after the door closes. Turn on the porch light when the door is unlocked, or when there’s motion, or when the doorbell rings, etc.
This means the Automation Editor is filled with rules, often in pairs, that relate to a single concept, but are only listed alphabetically.
- Entryway Lights Off
- Entryway Lights On Lock Failure
- Entryway Lights On Unlock
- Entryway Lock Autolock
- Garage Door Warning
- Garage Lights Auto Off
- Garage Lights Auto On
- Porch Lights Auto Off
- Porch Lights Auto On
This creates a bit of an organizational headache since the alphabetical nature of the list means the naming has to be as awkward as it is strict or it ends up like Home Assistant’s junk drawer.
I would love some sort of grouping feature to collect common rules together. This would allow the names to be both more natural and descriptive. The improvement in organization would also make it more natural to create more simple rules instead of fewer complex rules.
Lastly a simple toggle to turn on/off all the automations in a group would be great. The current workaround is to create (and maintain) a Lovelace card, but having it all managed in the Automation Editor with the ability to call something like automation_group.turn_on automation_group.den_lights would be a sizable improvement.
- Entryway Lights =>
- Turn on lights when door is unlocked
- Turn on entryway and porch lights when bad code is entered
- Turn off porch lights after 30 minutes
- Lock Front door after 30 minutes
- Garage Lights =>
- Turn on garage lights when GD is open
- Turn off garage lights when GD has closed for 30 min
- Garage =>
- Send Notify when door left open for 30 min
- Close GD on notification response