Can you tell me where you got the specific information about the reasoning for the change in the integration so that I know where to find that sort of thing in the future?
There was a discussion on GitHub around the PR that removed the switch entities.
You can see it actually lay dormant for a while. And that opposing arguments were also made. The line seems to be that with the addition of the select entity, there were now effectively 3 ways to do the same thing, adding redundancy.
I personally liked the switches, but was happy enough to reactivate the template switches that I had before as a workaround. As long as there is some kind of solution, I’m trying to hold on to the attitude that life’s too short to get really worked up about this sort of thing!
Also trying to adopt that approach especially as it’s opensource and we are lucky to have it however as it is leading to creation of extra helpers. automations and/or yaml; it is really rather annoying!
1 Like
Ah, thanks, okay, I’m relatively new to github as a whole, so looking at comments around specific pull requests is a place that it didn’t occur to me to check. Thanks very much!
So, if I want to keep the convenience of asking Google Assistant to “turn on” “my activity”, I have to create a template switch in Yaml… Very convenient indeed. I think Home Assistant has a long way before it can be used by the layman 
I am afraid that I still not not quite understand what to do until the mid of 2024. I use the “switch” to retrieve the state of the remote. For example, if I watch TV, use a stick, or play the XBox, I want the Harmony Hub to switch the volume up and down every :05 minutes after the hour, because otherwise the TV automatically switches off (no joke, this is supposed to be a feature).
Therefore, I provided the following automation:
alias: Reactivate TV every hour
description: Shortly sets volume down and up five minutes after every full hour
trigger:
- platform: time_pattern
minutes: "5"
condition:
- condition: or
conditions:
- condition: device
type: is_on
device_id: 5c592c0bcb78097b0a5e662e5b6763b4
entity_id: switch.harmony_hub_2_watchtv
domain: switch
- condition: device
type: is_on
device_id: 5c592c0bcb78097b0a5e662e5b6763b4
entity_id: switch.harmony_hub_2_xbox_play
domain: switch
- condition: device
type: is_on
device_id: 5c592c0bcb78097b0a5e662e5b6763b4
entity_id: switch.harmony_hub_2_fire_tv_watch
domain: switch
- condition: device
type: is_on
device_id: 5c592c0bcb78097b0a5e662e5b6763b4
entity_id: switch.harmony_hub_2_television_only_tv
domain: switch
action:
- service: remote.send_command
data:
delay_secs: 0.6
device: "68048731"
command:
- VolumeDown
- VolumeUp
mode: single
How would I be supposed to change this? To me, this is not clear from the earlier posts in this thread. Thank you in advance.
Currently I use Google Home and/or HomeKit to turn the various Harmony Hub scenes on for different TV inputs (AppleTV, Chromecast etc). I’ve created the new Template switches, and they seem to work but they don’t have the full functionality of the built-in switches.
If I turn the AppleTV on, it will turn on the TV, AppleTV and Receiver, and set them to the appropriate inputs. If I then turn on the Chromecast, the Harmony Hub will only change the inputs (knowing that I still need the TV and Receiver on), but it will also turn off the AppleTV switch.
With my new Template switches, I can turn on the AppleTV, then the ChromeCast, but if I then try to turn on the AppleTV again, either immediately or after turning off the Chromecast, this won’t work as Home Assistant thinks the AppleTV is already on (or at least it seems inconsistent when it will or won’t work in this situation). Is there a way to mimic the existing switch behaviour?
I also have a Broadlink RM4 device that suffers the same problem so it would be good to have a generic solution that allows only one switch from a group to be on at a time without the off routine of other switch(s) also firing when they’re turned off.
They should be functionally indistinguishable - they certainly are for me.
Post a sample switch code just to double check.
I have 4 switches configured like this.
- platform: template
switches:
lounge_room_appletv:
unique_id: ab137072-e933-4062-b0d5-14eee30a10f7
friendly_name: Lounge Room AppleTV
turn_on:
service: select.select_option
target:
entity_id:
- select.harmony_hub_activities
device_id: []
area_id: []
data:
option: Lounge Room AppleTV
turn_off:
service: select.select_option
target:
entity_id:
- select.harmony_hub_activities
device_id: []
area_id: []
data:
option: power_off
If I turn one on and then a second, this will leave the first switch on. With the built in Harmony Hub integration switches, the first switch would have been turned off.
There’s also a slight difference in the appearance of the switch in the Home Assistant interface. These switches look like this with two sections.
Where as other non-template (?) switches look like this; more of a slider.
This seems to only be a visual thing though, not functional, so I’m not particularly concerned, it just seemed strange to have two different ways of presenting a two position switch.
You need to add a value_template key so that the switch reports its state to Home Assistant. Otherwise, the switch state defaults to optimistic, which usually means it stays on after it is switched on, unless directly switched off. The absence of this key also explains why it looks different in the frontend.
- platform: template
switches:
lounge_room_appletv:
unique_id: ab137072-e933-4062-b0d5-14eee30a10f7
friendly_name: Lounge Room AppleTV
value_template: >
{{ is_state('select.harmony_hub_activities', 'Lounge Room AppleTV') }}
turn_on:
service: select.select_option
target:
entity_id:
- select.harmony_hub_activities
data:
option: Lounge Room AppleTV
turn_off:
service: select.select_option
target:
entity_id:
- select.harmony_hub_activities
data:
option: power_off
Everyone coming to this thread
This will create all activities as switches
Simply copy/paste the following code chunk into your template editor.
Template Editor:
Code Chunk:
{% set entity = 'remote.living_room' %}
switch:
- platform: template
switches:
{%- for activity in state_attr(entity, 'activity_list') %}
{%- set name = device_attr(entity, 'name_by_user') or device_attr(entity, 'name') %}
### {{ name }} {{ activity }} Harmony Activty ###
{{ (name ~ ' ' ~ activity) | slugify }}:
unique_id: harmony-activity-{{ name | slugify }}-{{ activity | slugify }}
friendly_name: {{ name }} {{ activity }}
value_template: >
{% raw %}{{{% endraw %} is_state_attr('{{ entity }}', 'current_activity', '{{ activity }}') {% raw %}}}{% endraw %}
turn_on:
service: remote.turn_on
target:
entity_id: {{ entity }}
data:
activity: {{ activity }}
turn_off:
service: remote.turn_on
target:
entity_id: {{ entity }}
data:
activity: PowerOff
{% endfor %}
Next, change
{% set entity = 'remote.living_room' %}
to whatever your remote entity is. for example, if it’s remote.lounge_room…
{% set entity = 'remote.lounge_room' %}
If you don’t have a switch section in configuration.yaml, copy the entire response from the template editor and paste it into your configuration.yaml.
If you do have a switch section in configuration.yaml, only copy everything after the switch: line.
11 Likes
Fantastic, that got it working as expected. Thank you so much!
Thanks @petro for the custom switches.
The turn-on switch works great, but the turn-off doesn’t work.
What’s the best way to troubleshoot this?
Cheers,
Geoff.
Sorry for my lack of knowledge, I have this same issue and really can not figure out what I am supposed to do.
In my 2 scripts that have this issue, I have the script toggle the switch. I do a toggle because I have a button on a dashboard that serves as a remote. So hit the button once, turns on. Hit it a second time, turns off.
alias: livingroom_roku_power
sequence:
- service: switch.toggle
target:
entity_id: switch.living_room_watch_roku
data: {}
mode: single
icon: mdi:cast
I tried updating the script using Call Service Input Select, but really dont know which to choose. I tired a few of them and then when I click on the Choose Entity, nothing shows as an option.
Do I have to do anything within the Logitech Integration? When I go there, they still show as switches.
Sorry, I am not the most proficient at YAML so I use the visual editor nearly 100% of the time.
This is comical… “We’re removing the switch platform from the Harmony Hub integration”… and the solution is to use a template to CREATE VIRTUAL SWITCHES. This is beyond annoying. So you’re going to remove something that I can select and configure from the UI to something that requires configuration/script manipulation before it can be configured as an entity from the UI?
The solutions provided, other than the one that suggests creating template switches, are not sufficient for using activities as entities. Using the Entity card, Picture Glance card, or any card that allows using an entity as a toggle/switch to create an interaction in the UI is now going to be locked behind script/configuration file changes… Either that or we need to rebuild parts of our setups to use alternate cards and/or methods… brilliant.
I understand this is open source and free software, and I appreciate all of the effort of everyone involved in building such an awesome, central, smart home application. But this is a poor decision on someone’s part, and I haven’t seen any real justification other than “it’s redundant”… does that mean you don’t use RAID in your data backup solution because “it’s redundant”? No… I should hope not.
4 Likes
Thank you.
1 Like
Why are we being advised to use the select entity over the remote entity?
I think I figured out how to use the Select:Select option. But with the Switch option, I had 1 script to toggle the switch on and off. This was the easy way for me to turn the movie on and off. Now with the Select how do I know to Power On vs Power Off? I thought about using an If then and checking the condition of the state of the entity, but that is still the switch entity. So I keep getting the error.
I saw Petro option of the Remote command. But with mine (which might be setup wrong) there is only one option when I choose Remote: Toggle and its just the living room remote. How do I specify the Movie vs Roku that are two activities that I have configured?
Only because it’s easier to use. The remote entity doesn’t have auto completion for commands, where the select has a known list and you can use it pretty much everywhere in the UI.
If your comfortable using the remote vs the select, there’s no reason to swap to the select. I’m still using the remote and I have no plans to change that.
With the Remote option, how do you select the specific activity? I looked at the Remote: Toggle, but I only see the option for the device and/or entity living room remote.
How do I specify the activity Watch Movie vs Watch Roku? I would like 1 script to toggle the power of 1 activity. If I have to break it into multiple, how do I tell if the movie is On or Off? Checking the state only lets me see the switch state, which is again the same original error.