I have an automation that turns on some outdoor lights at sunset, and automation that turns on lights based off of motion detection. I would like a way to disable both automations for Halloween, we will be gone and don’t want trick or treaters coming up to the house because outdoor lights are on
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You can just click at the 3 dots menu at the right and select “Disable”.
Another option is to add a condition and then set to not run that day.
Or, the one I like more (and I use a lot on my automations) to have some helper to set a Halloween mode (I have for Party mode, Travelling mode, etc.) and set a condition on your automations to run only when that helper is off. With this you can manually bypass your automations,
I have many automations that based on events. This is how I did it:
calender.json
{
"json_calendars": {
"events": {
"11/23":"Black Friday",
"11/24":"Black Friday",
"11/25":"Black Friday",
"11/26":"Black Friday",
"11/27":"Black Friday",
"12/31":"New Year's Eve"
},
"holiday": {
"1/1":"Christmas",
"1/2":"Christmas",
"1/3":"Christmas",
"2/14":"Valentine's Day",
"4/1":"April Fool's Day",
"4/27":"Kingsday",
"5/11":"Birthday",
"5/14":"Eurovision",
"7/4":"Independence Day",
"8/19":"Birthday",
"9/2":"Special Day P&K",
"10/1":"Halloween",
"10/2":"Halloween",
"10/3":"Halloween",
"10/4":"Halloween",
"10/5":"Halloween",
"10/6":"Halloween",
"10/7":"Halloween",
"10/8":"Halloween",
"10/9":"Halloween",
"10/10":"Halloween",
"10/11":"Halloween",
"10/12":"Halloween",
"10/13":"Halloween",
"10/14":"Halloween",
"10/15":"Halloween",
"10/16":"Halloween",
"10/17":"Halloween",
"10/18":"Halloween",
"10/19":"Halloween",
"10/20":"Halloween",
"10/21":"Halloween",
"10/22":"Halloween",
"10/23":"Halloween",
"10/24":"Halloween",
"10/25":"Halloween",
"10/26":"Halloween",
"10/27":"Halloween",
"10/28":"Halloween",
"10/29":"Halloween",
"10/30":"Halloween",
"10/31":"Halloween",
"11/15":"Christmas",
"11/16":"Christmas",
"11/17":"Christmas",
"11/18":"Christmas",
"11/19":"Christmas",
"11/20":"Christmas",
"11/21":"Christmas",
"11/22":"Christmas",
"11/23":"Christmas",
"11/24":"Christmas",
"11/25":"Christmas",
"11/26":"Christmas",
"11/27":"Christmas",
"11/28":"Christmas",
"11/29":"Christmas",
"11/30":"Christmas",
"12/1":"Christmas",
"12/2":"Christmas",
"12/3":"Christmas",
"12/4":"Christmas",
"12/5":"Christmas",
"12/6":"Christmas",
"12/7":"Christmas",
"12/8":"Christmas",
"12/9":"Christmas",
"12/10":"Christmas",
"12/11":"Christmas",
"12/12":"Christmas",
"12/13":"Christmas",
"12/14":"Christmas",
"12/15":"Christmas",
"12/16":"Christmas",
"12/17":"Christmas",
"12/18":"Christmas",
"12/19":"Christmas",
"12/20":"Christmas",
"12/21":"Christmas",
"12/22":"Christmas",
"12/23":"Christmas",
"12/24":"Christmas",
"12/25":"Christmas",
"12/26":"Christmas",
"12/27":"Christmas",
"12/28":"Christmas",
"12/29":"Christmas",
"12/30":"Christmas",
"12/31":"Christmas"
}
}
}
2 Sensors:
- platform: command_line
unique_id: "490f80c3-7bde-47c0-a6fa-c2ed6d742926"
name: "Holiday"
command: "cat /config/package/json/calendar.json"
scan_interval: 21600
value_template: >-
{% set today = now().month ~ '/' ~ now().day %}
{% set holiday = value_json.json_calendars.holiday[ today ] %}
{% if holiday | trim == "" %}
{% set holiday = "Nothing" %}
{% endif %}
{{ holiday }}
- platform: command_line
unique_id: "716b7f41-ac6d-4df2-b01a-31b2ccf9e138"
name: "Events"
command: "cat /config/package/json/calendar.json"
scan_interval: 21600
value_template: >-
{% set today = now().month ~ '/' ~ now().day %}
{% set events = value_json.json_calendars.events[ today ] %}
{% if events | trim == "" %}
{% set events = "Nothing" %}
{% endif %}
{{ events }}
When there is nothing in the calendar.json then state is ‘Nothing’
Possible condition: When the state is true then proceed, when false then skip
- id: "c54afbee-cd69-4cf3-8a55-4cbc2979234f"
alias: "Scene - AppleTV"
mode: restart
trigger:
- platform: time_pattern
minutes: "/1"
- platform: state
entity_id: sensor.harmony
to: "AppleTV"
condition:
- "{{ is_state('sensor.holiday', 'Nothing') }}"
action:
...
A automation based on those sensors:
- service: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: light.nanoleaf
data:
brightness_pct: 20
effect: >-
{% if is_state('sensor.holiday', 'Christmas') %}
Christmas
{% elif is_state('sensor.holiday', 'Halloween') %}
Halloween
{% elif is_state('sensor.holiday', 'Eurovision') %}
Kay
{% elif states('sensor.holiday') in ['Kingsday', 'Birthday'] %}
Kingsday
{% else %}
Kay
{% endif %}
With this setup I only need to update the calendar.json file with other dates and then use them.
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This was the approach I was wanting, but spent several hours last night trying to get google calendar to work, but when I got to the part of adding the keycode from HA into google, google would say success, but HA would just time out.
I don’t use Google. I have some automations based on my apple.calendar. Maybe I create a calendar with above dates so I can remove the json file. But I don’t see the benefits of switching 
1 Like