Hi everyone. I’m trying to find a way to create a virtual switch in HA that is “linked” to a physical switch or light.
There are a couple of reason for wanting this, the main one being that I want to replace all of my wall switches with Sonoff M5 switches, and some of them have Hue bulbs. So when I send a voice command, I will mention a virtual RGB dimmer, and this virtual dimmer will then turn on or off the Sonoff switch and send the RGB/brightness commands to the Hue bulb.
I know I could make the Sonoff switches just work as “remotes” and not actually cut the power to the bulbs, but I’ve done some tests and I don’t like the delays and fade times when using the physical switches.
Also, I want the nodes to be easily editable, I’ve tried this in my first Node Red automation where I just set a device list on the Inject or Event state node, and the rest of the nodes pick the device names from the messages. This allows me to use the same node block with different devices without needing to edit a lot of things every time I copy and paste the block.
As this setup can easily create an insane on/off loop if the switches are actioned a couple of times too fast, I’m adding a bypass flow variable. But the thing is that I’m not being able to make the switch node react to the variable’s content.
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bypass false","rules":[{"t":"set","p":"{{bypassVar}}","pt":"flow","to":"false","tot":"bool"}],"action":"","property":"","from":"","to":"","reg":false,"x":740,"y":200,"wires":[[]]},{"id":"00c3f64cb0421198","type":"debug","z":"fbb020a344ed4251","name":"debug 7","active":true,"tosidebar":true,"console":false,"tostatus":false,"complete":"true","targetType":"full","statusVal":"","statusType":"auto","x":660,"y":260,"wires":[]},{"id":"4bc88cbae40d8351","type":"debug","z":"fbb020a344ed4251","name":"debug 8","active":true,"tosidebar":true,"console":false,"tostatus":false,"complete":"false","statusVal":"","statusType":"auto","x":580,"y":40,"wires":[]},{"id":"8a86b0cc.b2bac","type":"server","name":"Home Assistant","version":4,"addon":true,"rejectUnauthorizedCerts":true,"ha_boolean":"y|yes|true|on|home|open","connectionDelay":true,"cacheJson":true,"heartbeat":false,"heartbeatInterval":30,"areaSelector":"friendlyName","deviceSelector":"friendlyName","entitySelector":"friendlyName","statusSeparator":"at: ","statusYear":"hidden","statusMonth":"short","statusDay":"numeric","statusHourCycle":"h23","statusTimeFormat":"h:m"}]
Does every call service node need the Domain set up? If I’m just turning switches and lights on and off, what’s the use of indicating the domain?
What’s the best way to create a virtual switch for this purpose? I imagine I would need the virtual switch to have the same domain as the lights I want to control (I’m currently using an input boolean).
Feel free to give your suggestions, I’m interested in trying different ways of achieving this.
Thanks a lot,
Rodrigo
