Changing input_boolean helper state

Configuration
1

Hello,

I am new to automations. I would like that everytime the state of the entities (media_player.zone_11, media_player.zone_12, media_player.zone_14) changes, the corresponding helper variable also changes. I know this may seem pointless, but I am hoping to use it in a more advanced automation later so that I can recall a previous state

Only the zone_11 works below, zone_12 and zone_14 trigger the script but the corresponding helper variable doesn’t change. What am I doing wrong? This is probably a silly way to do this, but I am new, if there is a better way I am open to that too.

alias: New Automation
description: ""
trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id:
      - media_player.zone_11
      - media_player.zone_12
      - media_player.zone_14
condition: []
action:
  - choose:
      - conditions:
          - condition: template
            value_template: "{{ trigger.entity_id == media_player.zone_11 }}"
        sequence:
          - service: input_boolean.toggle
            data: {}
            target:
              entity_id: input_boolean.zone1
      - conditions:
          - condition: template
            value_template: "{{ trigger.entity_id == media_player.zone_12 }}"
        sequence:
          - service: input_boolean.toggle
            data: {}
            target:
              entity_id: input_boolean.zone2
      - conditions:
          - condition: template
            value_template: "{{ trigger.entity_id == media_player.zone_14 }}"
        sequence:
          - service: input_boolean.toggle
            data: {}
            target:
              entity_id: input_boolean.zone4
mode: queued
2

I’m surprised any of them work… in the comparisons you need to put single quotes around the entity ID’s. Unquoted, they will be interpreted as variable objects instead of strings.

  - choose:
      - conditions:
          - condition: template
            value_template: "{{ trigger.to_state.entity_id == 'media_player.zone_11' }}"
3

If you can rely on the entity naming such that the last character of the media player’s entity_id is the number of the zone to toggle, you could do this:


description: ""
mode: queued
trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id:
      - media_player.zone_11
      - media_player.zone_12
      - media_player.zone_14
condition: []
action:
  - service: input_boolean.toggle
    data: {}
    target:
      entity_id: input_boolean.zone{{ trigger.to_state.entity_id[-1] }}
4

It only seems like it “works” because choose will stop at the first condition that matches, and neither trigger.entity_id nor media_player.zone_11 are variables that are defined. Therefore, undefined does, in fact, equal undefined.

Try this out in the dev tools template editor and see the result:

{{ variable_that_does_not_exist == another_variable_that_does_not_exist }}
5
[quote="mekaneck, post:3, topic:643283"] `entity_id: input_boolean.zone{{ trigger.to_state.entity_id[-1] }}` [/quote] 
entity_id: input_boolean.zone_1{{ trigger.to_state.entity_id[-1] }}

(You omitted the _1.)

6

Your correction is what makes sense to me too (from a consistent naming perspective), but the code in the first post has media_player.zone_11 matching up with input_boolean.zone1.

So although it’s not consistent it was intentional. :grin:

1 Like
7

Indeed! I guess my brain just automatically went there.

8

Interesting, I didn’t intend for either of them to be variables. But from the other posts, I understand why it looks like that, thanks!

9

This helps thank you