Dummy sensor whose state can be set by automations

Configuration
1

I read a lot in the forums now but I still dont understand the standard solution for a very simple problem.

In my setup there are HA events generated by my sensors and automations. Now I want a sensor, which is visible in the GUI like let’s say a mqtt sensor. I now want this sensor to change it’s state according to specific events. For example there is an event A which shall set the sensor state to “on” and an event B that sets the sensor state to “off”.

I am symply looking fo a “dummy sensor” which’s state can be set by an automation. I can’t find such a sensor.

More abstractly spoken: I am looking for a global variable whose state can be shown in the GUI and can be set by automations.

What is the right way to achieve this?
Or is this really not possible?

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Use an input_boolean for this. It should do exactly what you want. If you want it to be visible among the other sensors as well however you can make a template sensor with the state being {{ states.input_boolean.YOUR_BOOLEAN.state }}

3 Likes
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You totally made my day!

Somehow I was so fixated on sensors or switches that I didn’t see this component.

Thanks a lot and have a great day

1 Like
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I use an input_select to accomplish this. I’ve recently found this project for real variables, but I haven’t tried it yet.

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Thanks for the link!

Yes that seems to exactly address my idea. Sadly it’s not a standard component by now. It’s good to see that I am not the only one wth this approach. I will follow that discussion.

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@Jolanrensen. Appreciate your feedback here. I’m trying to create a ‘dummy’ switch I can control with Google/Alex that fires a script. I see the template switch which looks ideal but I have no off action to load into the config. Any idea how I’d create the switch with a null off action?

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see