Help an old SmartThings user understand HA scenes, modes, and automations

Configuration
1

I’ve been reading a lot. I have things working, used a running windows server at my house, VirtualBox, and docker, plus a HUSBZB-1, and I have devices and integrations working. I have a few more to setup, but think I will be setup soon device wise.

I understand how Groups work, so got that working for the most part.

I don’t need detailed explanations here, just basic direction. I’ve searched a lot, some posts are old, some new, but just not sure where to start.

In SmartThings I had the concept of state with a mode, so Away, Home, Night, Guest, Vacation. What is the best way to do this in HA? I read some say you have to control it all yourself with variables in the config file, then make virtual switches if you want to manually set them or see their status? That seems confusing if you only want it possible to ever be just in one mode, so multiple switches should never be able to be on? I’ve seen screenshots with what looks like a mode selector, but not sure how. I have also seen some concepts of alarm modes, and talk about device tracker modes, I have device tracker working with Life360 integration. I’m just a little lost here and struggling to find clear best practice.

I also see scenes, so will try them tonight following the instructions. Will those show up on the dashboard and be manually usable or just in automations? Can a scene set a mode, or would you only want to do that in a separate automation that sets a mode and then runs a scene?

I also get confused about automations, is that still the thing to do or AppDaemon is the new thing? Is AppDaemon separate from main HA and just a way to run Python and use the API on HA instead of automations in yaml format? I know I need ApDaemon for HADashboard. My automations are pretty simple, thinking to stick with the built in automations concept in yaml for now.

Also, what about running automations manually, will they show up or do you have to map to some virtual switch of some kind?

Last on UI, right now on the default, going to try LoveLace soon, but was curious about the Home page. I know I can override with default_view, and make it like I want, which is great, but then where do I see my new devices? I feel I have to leave Home with just everything or I won’t have a place to see, test, and work with new devices I pair unless I find them under entities, then manually edit the Groups to add them somewhere. I like when I first pair something playing with it, making sure it all works, renaming it, then heading to the yaml files to organize it. What do others do? i thought about a view called “All Devices”, but is their an entity I can add to it to mimic the home page now? I really just want to see all the zigbee and zwave stuff, not other integrations.

Sorry for questions I’m sure I would learn along the way, but I feel I’m about to spend a lot of time doing configuration and didn’t want to start in the wrong way, and feel there are multiple options or approaches,

I’ll keep reading on the forums.

2

Learning more on my own. I found the “alarm_control_panel”, that gets me the modes I’m use too for a manual alarm.

Also figured I would try out automations and scripts first, but get that the daemon thing is to run full on python and just more powerful, so I will install and play with that.

Still curious how others handle modes, ones not tied to the alarm.

3

From what I understand that you mean by modes, you can use an input boolean or an input select to save this.

You can switch these either manually, or with automations.

Alternatively, you can use a calendar sensor or a workday sensor and use the state of the sensor directly.

4

Automations won’t show in the front end unless you have added them to a group. This is because they are by definition automatic therefore why would you need a switch? I have no automations showing in the front end.

I do however have some scripts in the front end as I manually trigger some these.

Your modes can be as @gpbenton suggested. You would use automations to switch between home and away modes based on your device tracker

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scripts make sense, I had just been reading about scenes and automations, not scripts yet

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I’m starting to learn Lovelace, do people still use groups with Lovelace?

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Just to help future people. Just keep reading, and then read more, and then read more. It all makes sense eventually. input_selector is what you are looking for and a combination with the manual alarm control. I also did not match 1 for 1 like in SmartThings, so I have 3 on my input_selector, Normal, Guest, and Vacation, and then use the states in the alarm control for Home, Away, and Disarmed. With all that I can run my automation as needed.

Daemon is cool also, but I’m just using for HADashboard. So for I can do everything pretty easily with scripts, automations, and a scenes.

Stop using default UI, switch to Lovelace, it seems stable. It has the concept of unused entities too, which is anything new you paired, great to see new stuff.

Just notes as I keep learning.