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

Feature Requests
62

I too stopped using scenes and use scrips for three reasons:

  1. Scenes being active when editing. Terrible if you’re editing the all lights out scene and some one triggers a motion sensor right before save. Hence the upvote.
  2. Scenes saving way more state than expected. Could cause a lot of headaches if a scene keeps reverting configuration settings I didn’t know where in the scene
  3. Scenes not being able to have conditional parts or call other scenes.

With point 1 out of the way I may reconsider using them some more. Otherwise, if it really is that complex, I kind of wonder if the whole scene thing is worth the added complexity. The only usefull thing about scenes i.m.o. is saving the state to return to it some (not too long) time after. In that case none of my downsides above are relevant.

5 Likes
63

Sort of? My point was that the value add for scenes seems to depend on the feature no one in here likes.

That being said, thinking about it, it would be pretty cool if the scene editor was basically a UI dashboard except nothing happened. Like for each device you add the entities show up just like they would on any other dashboard in the UI. You can toggle them, open more info to edit them, etc do all the things you would normally do in the UI. Except it’s all mocked, nothing in the real world actually changes, you’re just pretending to change them to the state you want them to be in.

I imagine that would be a lot of work since HA doesn’t do anything like that anywhere else. The UI is currently set up so you can actually change entities from anywhere they show up. But still, would be cool. And still differentiates scenes from scripts since there is no yaml, service calls or programming-like complexity like in a script. You could edit the scene like you were using a dashboard instead.

EDIT: oof and you’d also need a way to unset something. Like if the scene captured the color of a light you’d need a way to say “unset” or “uncapture” that in the mocked more info popup if you only wanted the scene to change brightness.

Yea definitely a lot of work. Cool though.

64

@CentralCommand In 8 years of home automation I have never had the need or desire to have my lights change while editing a scene but I can see how some might want it to do so. What I would prefer is for the default NOT to change the device while setting up the scene and for there to be a toggle to enable this “feature” or to simply have a scene test button. When adding devices one could also be given the option to capture current state of the device even though I don’t think I would ever use it.

I am constantly updating my setup remotely (not in the room affected by scene) and/or at odd hours (ie middle of night) so it is often very disruptive to have the scene execute while I edit. The above would cater for all scenarios without disruption.

2 Likes
65

You have a point here, though it hasn’t have to be as difficult to get closer to it. Scenes are meant to make things simple. I originally come from another Home Automation system that is renowned for being simple (Homey). So I got to thinking what was so different. Because Homey basically only has automations (called Flows). And it is simple. Home Assistant takes way more time to get used to.

It’s not that scenes need to be simple, it is that scripts and automations are unnessecarily hard.

What confused the hell out of me when I started writing automations and scripts for Home Assistant the first time was that it took me ages to find out to dim a light to 60%. And I’ve been a proffessional programmer for a long time.

First I selected “Device”, and got tons of options that did not even resemble to be what I was looking for (I know, turn on/off was there, but they were literally option 81 and 82 in the list, and not what I needed). A lot of things you can act on are not devices but entities. But you cannot pick “Entity” in the script editor. You’re supposed to pick a service for that. If it is a fan, you can use fan.turn_on, but not for a light. For a light you need a different service. That is kind of like telling someone you can’t turn the light on yourself, you need to ask a dedicated servant to do so. That only makes sense to programmers.

The dashboard does not contain devices and services. It contains entities. And those entities usually have only a few things you can do to it, that are logical for the entity at hand.

Why does the script editor not have the default option “Entity”, with actions below it that make sense for that entity alone? The way the dashboard does? That is how most Home Automation systems I know behave, and that is what people expect. “Entity” should be the default choice for a script, with only the most sensible operations. Certainly not the 90 options my z-wave devices give me because of all the numerous enitties and configuration settings associated with that device.

For automation triggers it is kind of similar. I was looking for Entity but did not find it. Device is there, but it has all kinds of things for all associated entities. It makes way less sense to me. And if I take a z-wave light: again lots of options, but not anything to react on dimming. I need numerical state for that. Something that eludes most beginners. It’s all there, but no where near as simple as the entities that the dashboard shows. Can the dashboard even handle devices themselves? So why is a dashboard only entities, and a script only devices?

Scenes have entities, that is way more logical. But I did not expect that it actually all happend while editing. That considerably lowered the WAF when I was setting up scenes. I only expect it when I execute or test it. And it is really error prone once the home automation is running and Home Assistant changes the states of devices I’m editing scenes for. Most of us have motion triggers. Just don’t move when you edit the lights out scene though :upside_down_face:

And then I quickly stumbled upon a condition I wanted to put in but coudn’t. And I found myself repeating myself because you can’t call scenes from other scenes. And then I saw what mess was in the yaml: icons, friendly names, RF protection states, local protection states, … Is it going to restore all these too?

So just give me automations and scripts with Entity as a default starting point, and it will probably all me much clearer to most people.

67

I think there’s value in capturing the current state of devices in scene editor, but I agree that the fact that editing a scene happens “live” was unexcepted behavior for me initially.

For me, my ideal scene editor UI behavior would be very similar to the script editor with a few key differences:

  • Works with a limited set of entities (as the scene editor does currently)
  • Captures the current state of a device only when its added to the scene. This is essentially just setting the initial entity state in the scene to whatever state it was in when it was added (not linked).
    • This means that if a user wanted to set up the state of the lights and then create a scene to save those states, they still could. They’d basically set their lights, create a scene, and add each light to a new scene - same process as currently.
  • Editing a scene doesn’t actually change any states. If you add an entity to the scene and then change its brightness, the physical light doesn’t update in real time.
  • A preview button that allows you to set the scene. (A bonus would be if you could also undo setting the scene and restore the previous states)

To me, this maintains the simplicity of the scene editor while also allowing users to easily capture the state of lights.

3 Likes
68

They made some progress towards the original request for 2022.6!:

Someone out there is listening…

1 Like
69

This is killing my relationship… I’m trying to setup a scene that turns a bunch of devices off if we go on vacation. Every time I try to edit the scene all those devices turn off. The edit button should not activate the scene; this is bad UX.

4 Likes
70

+1 From me on this. As a newbie to Home Assistant, this was a majorly annoying “feature” that should be removed.

71

+1 here. Setting scenes using my thermostat I don’t like to have my furnace and AC cycling the burner or compressor just because I’m changing scene values. Maybe on option per device/entity to allow for ‘previewing’ while editing scenes?

1 Like
72

+1!
I was making a “party” scene where an automation had to be disabled, related to my alarm.
I didn’t realize it actually executed the scene settings immediately, effectively disabling my alarm in the middle of the night.

73

I was adding new two scenes and opened a few older ones to check them.

Turns out I turned off my fridge and freezer! Aaargh.

Been running HA for ages and I only had a vague notion that this was how it worked. It was more than a year since I touched scenes, and I have not been using the much. If nothing else this is not intuitive.

74

Just started migrating from ST to HA and stumbled across this absurd Scene editing implementation. Makes me want to halt the migration. Upvoted.

Everything else, so far, is pretty awesome and it’s great to be able to execute locally - very fast compared to ST! Thank you developers, but please fix this Scene issue!

1 Like
75

Same here! Would much appreciate if scene’s are not applied when trying the edit the scene’s. Currently very frustrating and in my case requires planning to make adjustments to scene’s (one of them triggers the fire alarm siren).

76

My wife just yelled at me to stop messing with the lights, when all I was trying to do is to see WHICH of my scenes changed the kitchen lights…

:face_with_head_bandage:

1 Like
77

I’m just finishing up migrating my z-wave and zigbee devices (mainly the core lighting in the house) over to HA, along with the scenes supporting those devices.

Using the HA Scene Editor has been the most frustrating part, by far. The scene activating even when viewing the scene, having to have all of the lights in the desired state while editing the scene, trying to make sure no one in the house adjusts the lights while I’m trying to edit the scene (which, they probably will because I’m editing scenes for all kinds of situations). It’s all been frustrating.

1 Like
78

So, just by opening the scene editor is enough to add a buch of useless stuff to the configuration of the scene. Today I noticed a lot of hue values, color modes, icons, friendly name… added to my scene. What the hell? I just want to turn off the light, not to get an snapshot of it’s current configuration. Seriously, I will forbid myself to even visit the scene editor, it is, as it’s current state, an absolute non sense.

79

For being adamant about the removal of yaml being bad a couple of years ago, it seems odd to me that you’re even using the UI when you can configure this in yaml. (to avoid these issues)

80

As a new HA user, this omission is shocking! You got my 1st ever upvote. If I hadn’t already put a bunch of time into learning this, I would probably find a new platform because of this issue.

81

I am a new HA user. Lack of this feature is very frustrating, especially when you set
a “vacation” scene that cut all power plugs of the house… that result in cutting power of my computer and loosing scene setup…

2 Likes
82

+1 this should absolutely be fixed. By default, editing a scene should not affect the devices at all – love the idea of a “Live/Preview” checkbox that would allow me to use that feature, but making it the only option is crazy. I’m currently having to edit scenes in YAML to avoid cutting power to devices just by using the UI.