while searching through the forum I think this is something that would be helpful for more people than just me:
I have a normal group for the people living in my house which I currently use for triggering several automations etc. When I have guests in the house I want to signalize that to home assistant via an input_boolean.
The easiest and most intuitive way to no take my input_boolean into account for triggering the automations regarding if people are at home would be to just add it into my device_tracker group.
But since the input boolean uses the state on/off and not home/not_home this does not work.
Wouldn’t it be possible to handle the input_boolean just like any other device_tracker in the group?
Then it would not be needed to take a detour with making an extra check in each automation or an extra input boolean.
Group states are a logical OR of the members. So as long as one member of the group is home, then the group is deemed home. So even though our kids no longer live at home, I have their phones included in my device_tracker group.
Currently, you need to add the input_boolean into the relevant automations. I have two input_booleans to set vacation mode and holiday mode (ie christmas lights). Those cases only impact a couple of automations.
I haven’t tried this, but you could create a template sensor whose state is ‘home’ when the input_boolean is ‘on’, and ‘not_home’ when the input_boolean is not ‘on’. Then add that to the group. As long as the states are right, I’m not sure that the entity_id starts with sensor instead of device_tracker. Might be worth a try.
And, yes, I understand this topic is for requesting a new feature, but in the interim…
