Dynamic entities in group or light group

[mikaelhertzman]

I’ve spent days on this, searching both the web and this forum for answers. If anyone could point me in the right direction it would mean a lot to me!

I am trying to create “dynamic” groups, meaning that lights or other entities are added automatically to groups based on certain filters. I do this because adding new entities/devices manually every time I acquire a new smart device to my household seems inefficient (to put it mildly).

For this first example I am trying to create an “inside” light group, hence why I am filtering out the outside lights as you will see below. The code runs perfectly fine in the Developer Template tool which makes it even more strange. I am guessing it has something to do with what kind of values are accepted after entities. I’ve read the documentation but can’t see why this won’t work. Am I going about this the wrong way?

This is what I currently have in my lights configuration file, lights.yaml:

light:
  - platform: group
    name: Home Lights
    entities: >
      {{ states.light | map(attribute='entity_id') | reject('search', '.*outside*.') | join(',') }}

I’ve also tried the following in my groups configuration file, groups.yaml, with the same error:

group:
  home:
    name: Home Lights
    entities: >
      {{ states.light | map(attribute='entity_id') | reject('search', '.*outside*.') | join(',') }}

The error I get is

String does not match the pattern of "^(?!.+__)(?!_)[\da-z_]+(?<!_)\.(?!_)[\da-z_]+(?<!_)\s?(?:,\s?(?!.+__)(?!_)[\da-z_]+(?<!_)\.(?!_)[\da-z_]+(?<!_))*$".

Please don’t hesitate to ask me if further information is required!

[petro]

You can’t template in groups. You have to write an automation that sets the groups entities when homeasssistant start is triggered.

[petro]

Basically, take that template and feed it to the group set service call and use homeasssistant start as your trigger. You don’t even need to create the group beforehand in yaml.

[mikaelhertzman]

@petro

You can’t template in groups. You have to write an automation that sets the groups entities when homeasssistant start is triggered.

Thank you so much for your quick help! Did not know this. I thought I had read most that is to read about templating but obviously I missed something. Oh well, thanks for pointing it out!

@petro

Basically, take that template and feed it to the group set service call and use homeasssistant start as your trigger. You don’t even need to create the group beforehand in yaml.

Sounds like a great work-around, thank you! Does it have to trigger on home assistant starting up? It would be nice if it could trigger more often, perhaps on a set time interval? I will definitely look into this.

Thank you again for great help!

[mikaelhertzman]

Perhaps there is a way of triggering the service every time a new device is added to the system? That would be really neat.

[petro]

You can have it trigger based on whatever you want. You just need to add a second trigger

[petro]

There is no “new entity” event, so you have to get inventive

[mikaelhertzman]

@petro

There is no “new entity” event, so you have to get inventive

That’s too bad! I am sure I will think of something.

@petro

You can have it trigger based on whatever you want. You just need to add a second trigger

Great! Thank you again for all the great help! Hopefully this might help other beginners too.

[pedolsky]

This is a topic I’ve bookmarked to create an auto-group on start (or with time pattern as you mentioned):

Single automation for all lights

This actually works pretty great! I wondered if it worked with lights that turn on in pairs and it does too. By the way, I’ve combined this with an automation that starts this script at startup so the group is automatically created: sequence: - service: group.set data_template: object_id: my_lights entities: | {{ states.light | map(attribute='entity_id') | join(',') }} mode: single alias: Create 'my_lights' group for every lights icon: mdi:lightbulb

[mikaelhertzman]

@pedolsky

This is a topic I’ve bookmarked to create an auto-group on start (or with time pattern as you mentioned):

This actually works pretty great! I wondered if it worked with lights that turn on in pairs and it does too. By the way, I’ve combined this with an automation that starts this script at startup so the group is automatically created: sequence: - service: group.set data_template: object_id: my_lights entities: | {{ states.light | map(attribute=‘entity_id’) | join(‘,’) }} mode: single alias: Create ‘my_lights’ group for every lights icon: mdi:lightbulb

Great tip! Will definitely look into it, thank you!

[FlintS (Jürgen)]

Hi,
binging this old stuff on top cause I found no rookie compatible solution
so I want to ask if the dynamic group is already succefull implemented
I personal have the Idea … to combine at least all “temperature” entities in one group
and I dont care if there is a new one … its automaticly entered
and in an happy day scenario I can see the date when or its colored if new

Is such a dynamic group and a related dynamic dashboard card not a good Idea for a HA basic functionality ( update sequence choseable by restart / time (daily 23:55 ) / press buton )
remove from list manually or after 30 days