Holiday / Vacation mode

Configuration
4

Here is complete code I use for exactly the same purpose. You will need to adjust eventually your start (now 30 minutes before sunset), end (randomly after 22:30) and frequency (15 minutes) preference. Also some other setup required:

  • group.family - group of people for whom if not at home automation will trigger
  • group.simulation_lights - group containing all lights that will be used by automation (not all at home)

Basically automation triggers every 15 minutes + random delay (up to 30 minutes) and changes the state of randomly selected light in group to opposite (so either turn on or off).
It is also supplemented by additional automation that at time 22:30+random (30 minutes) switches all lights off.

#############################################################################
## Turn on/off indoor lights randomly
#############################################################################
- id: 'Automatic light toggle'
  alias: Random Away Lights
  initial_state: True
  hide_entity: False

  trigger:
    - platform: time_pattern
      minutes: '/15'

  condition:
    - condition: state
      entity_id: group.family
      state: 'not_home'
    - condition: sun
      after: sunset
      after_offset: '-00:30:00'
    - condition: time
      before: '22:00:00'

  action:
    - delay: "00:{{ '{:02}'.format(range(0,30) | random | int) }}:00"

    # Selecting entity for toggling
    - service: input_text.set_value
      data_template:
        entity_id: input_text.light_to_switch
        value: "{{ state_attr('group.simulation_lights','entity_id') | random }}"

    # Toggling entity state
    - service: homeassistant.toggle
      data_template:
        entity_id: "{{states('input_text.light_to_switch')}}"

################################################################
## Stopping presence simulation randomly 22:30
################################################################
- id: 'Turning off all toggled lights'
  alias: Turn off all lights
  initial_state: True
  hide_entity: False

  trigger:
    - platform: time
      at: '22:30:00'

  condition:
    - condition: state
      entity_id: group.family
      state: 'not_home'

  action:
    - delay: '00:{{ range(15,59) | random | int }}:00'
    - service: homeassistant.turn_off
      entity_id: group.simulation_lights

Please note additional step of setting the input_text.light_to_switch to random value - you might move this step directly to last step, but I’m using it to record automation states elsewhere, so need to take a note of it…

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