Improve Scene editor, allow scene edits without setting devices' states

Editing in StudioCode or File editor, it does not even auto-fill / auto suggest entity.

for e.g when type light.f (it should show list of light entities containing ‘f’)
it is very tiring to go copy the entity name and paste here everytime for each.

- id: "1719751703002"
  name: Family Room Scene
  entities:
    light.family_ceiling_lights:
      brightness_pct: 50
      color_temp_kelvin: 3010
      state: "on"

Scene editor should not be playing with “live” device settings by default. Scene editor should only interact with devices if something like “preview mode” is enabled.

Use case: Sometimes I just want to make a minor tweaks to the HVAC settings and the bouncing values at the thermostat tends to trigger a 10 minute protective shutdown of HVAC systems.

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Please, please fix this. For all the reasons that others have mentioned.

Scenes in HA really need a complete rehauling.

scene.create has a typical problem of losing it once restarted. It is not persistant.
There is no other way that the script can update the saved scene.

What I am trying to achieve?
On ‘Scene1’ button press, save/update the selected entities’ states so it can be recalled next time.

Updating scenes via ‘Automation& Scenes’ is very difficult for non-technical users.
Also, non-admin users will have issues seeing all the scenes and being able to change everything.

Easy method to update the scene is: User has its mushroom-based user-friendly dashboard, he/she changes lights/fan/climate as wanted and then long presses the scene button on same dashboard which calls the script and update/save the scene.

HA really needs to redesign its core scene methodology.

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Agreed… When I’ve had to go rename an entity, I just want to go clean up the scene to match the rename of the entity.
When I open the scene to edit, all the lights in the house go on.

For example, I’m editing indoor Christmas light scene that involves recessed hue lights. (It’s currently August). When I edit the indoor Christmas scene, The red and green colors that were previously in the scene are immediately replaced with the most recently used color of the entire recessed lights in the house. Mostly white but some blue. It’s confusing and now looks like my Christmas scene is completely gone.

This would be such a game changer. It could be as simple as when you are editing a scene and you make changes, they are not applied unless you press the apply button. Alternatively there can be an auto apply toggle that can be disabled for scene editor.

Being able to make a simple change to an all off scene without turning off every light in the house would be ideal.

Scenes will become 100x more useful when this functionality is enabled.

Thanks!

This is mind blowing how long the devs have left this as is. Hubitat and Smartthings both allow you to edit a scene without turning everything on. How has this not been fixed / rewritten by now?

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Not everyone is a YAML wizard that can write up a new scene of a new device type by memory. It would take me 10x longer to write a scene for my HVAC controller in YAML than it is to go through the UI.

I’m not arguing against the FR, I’m telling you how to get what you want right now. The UI doesn’t have the functionality that you want and it doesn’t look like anyone is willing to pick up the changes. So your options are:

  1. Adapt to the current functionality.
  2. Use YAML.
  3. Wait an undetermined time for the UI to be updated.

Personally, I pick 2 because it’s really not as hard as you’re making it out to be. You can even make them in the UI, then modify them in yaml after the fact.

YAML is a good option because even if yo don’t know how to write it, ChatGPT will literally do it for you. But this is something that should still get fixed in the UI. No other smart hub turns on lights while editing scenes and I don’t understand who would have thought turning on the lights to edit a scene was a good idea in the first place lol.

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IMHO YAML is an option, but not a good one. Home Assistant is trying to appeal to a broader audience that is familiar with the concept of “scenes” and what they should do coming from HomeKit etc. Scripts I can see as an alternative, but users will be confused + they won’t be used by things like “stateful scenes” (another big and important feature imho, essential for me coming from HomeKit).

I had a look at the YAML for three lights and the sheer number of lines present there was already too much to be a good alternative (saying that as a developer). Please please change that behavior! :slight_smile:

You don’t need to add all the options for yaml. Just the settings you need. I have multiple scenes that are just brightness and color, nothing else. That’s just 2 options.

Please re-think the current behaviour, it’s very annoying. I would use scripts instead but as far as I can see, they are not exposed to Google Home.

Yeah, well what everyone else said. Curious to see how much votes are needed to someone pick this up and change that annoying behaviour.

grafik

Plus others like WTH is there no way to create or edit scenes without realtime state changes?

grafik

So roughly 1.000 users explicitly said “the current behaviour is not optimal”.

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Big thanks to @karwosts and @marcinbauer85_3 for taking on this request and delivering a fix in 2024.12.0! I’m sure this enhancement took a ton of effort on your end, and I want to ensure your work wasn’t completed thanklessly.

THANK YOU!!! :heart: :smiley: :heart:

2 Likes

The latest release includes some significant improvements related to this:

Opening a Scene no longer auto-applies it, and you can now edit the scene YAML in the UI without applying it: (…) menu → “Edit in YAML”

There is still no support for editing the device/entity states in the visual editor without applying them, so this feature request isn’t fully implemented. However, this release is a big step in the right direction.

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Agreed: the scene editor still needs a UX overhaul. This was a big step in the right direction, and it should be just that – a first step.

Defaulting to “review” mode is a significant UX win in the meantime.

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If you watch the release party they actually give you a decent explanaition of what ‘Scenes’ are meant to be and why this is difficult to implement this feature.
2024.0.0 Release Party

IMO, scenes in 2024.12 is HALF BAKED, it does NOT allow you to EDIT a scene without actioning the devices, you can only edit the scene description etc, and IMO is not the USEFUL, although the YAML edit is a step foreword.

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For one, I too am annoyed by this. And applaud implementing a “dead” scene editor.