How to handle overrides for timed automations

Configuration
1

I’d like to setup various automations for things like turning on lights based on a presence sensor, or opening curtains when it gets light for rooms like an office.

What I’m wondering is if the room is also used as a guest room occasionally, how could I temporarily override those automations so guests aren’t woken up early or have the lights turned on when they’re asleep.

I could go in and manually turn off those automations temporarily. But that could be fiddly if there’s 10 or so. Perhaps a physical switch that gets checked by each automation? So ‘guest mode’ is activated? Any other ways anyone has tried to handle this?

2

Create a “guest” input_boolean helper and check that in your automation conditions.
Only a single switch to toggle…

1 Like
3

@tomchambers2, @koying 's suggestion is exactly what I do. I have an automations that open and close my blinds at sunrise and sunset. I created a page where I can toggle the booleans to control which blinds are opened/closed. So when a guest stays over, I just tap to turn off opening my blinds in the guest room.

Here’s a screenshot of my dashboard page.
image

Here is my automation to open blinds at sunrise if it helps. Note, you’ll see in my action that I’m turning on another input boolean that triggers other Automations that open my individual blinds.

- id: '1715967011566'
  alias: 'Blinds : Open at Sunrise'
  description: ''
  triggers:
  - trigger: sun
    event: sunrise
    offset: 0
  - trigger: numeric_state
    entity_id:
    - sensor.office_light_sensor_illuminance_lux
    above: 30
  conditions:
  - condition: sun
    after: sunrise
    before: sunset
  - condition: numeric_state
    entity_id: sensor.office_light_sensor_illuminance_lux
    above: 30
  actions:
  - if:
    - condition: state
      entity_id: input_boolean.boolean_open_at_sunrise_bedroom_blind
      state: 'on'
    then:
    - action: input_boolean.turn_on
      metadata: {}
      data: {}
      target:
        entity_id: input_boolean.boolean_bedroom_blind_open
  - if:
    - condition: state
      entity_id: input_boolean.boolean_open_at_sunrise_erins_blind
      state: 'on'
    then:
    - action: input_boolean.turn_on
      metadata: {}
      data: {}
      target:
        entity_id: input_boolean.boolean_erins_blind_open
  - if:
    - condition: state
      entity_id: input_boolean.boolean_open_at_sunrise_family_room_blinds
      state: 'on'
    then:
    - action: input_boolean.turn_on
      metadata: {}
      data: {}
      target:
        entity_id: input_boolean.boolean_family_room_blinds_open
  - if:
    - condition: state
      entity_id: input_boolean.boolean_open_at_sunrise_guest_room_blind
      state: 'on'
    then:
    - action: input_boolean.turn_on
      metadata: {}
      data: {}
      target:
        entity_id: input_boolean.boolean_guest_room_blind_open
  - if:
    - condition: state
      entity_id: input_boolean.boolean_open_at_sunrise_kitchen_blind
      state: 'on'
    then:
    - action: input_boolean.turn_on
      metadata: {}
      data: {}
      target:
        entity_id: input_boolean.boolean_kitchen_blind_open
  - if:
    - condition: state
      entity_id: input_boolean.boolean_open_at_sunrise_office_blind
      state: 'on'
    then:
    - action: input_boolean.turn_on
      metadata: {}
      data: {}
      target:
        entity_id: input_boolean.boolean_office_blind_open
  mode: single
4

Nice, great solution both - just aggregate the various things happening into a boolean. I will give it a go!

5

Whatever you are doing in your Action section of your automation remains the same, just conditionally execute the action with an if and check your input boolean there in the if. My actions are using booleans for a different reason. It’s to get around some challenges I have with controlling my blinds from Alexa. Instead of controlling them directly, I set an input boolean that triggers an automation to open/close the blind.