I have my AC unit setup to run and stop based on a thermostat where when therm reads XX it starts and when therm reads YY it stops. Pretty simple. Now I want to add a control like voice or button to ignorre the therm setting and run/stop the unit. When the unit is off the therm will control it. When forced on by the voice command, it will stay on till another voice command turns it off. I feel like this should be easy but I am stuck. Any help appreciated.
This sounds like the tricky bit - otherwise you could simply replace the trigger that starts the AC unit with an input_boolean, which could be turned on and off by button, voice command or thermostat reading.
HACS has an integration called Entity Controller, which has a “manual turn on, stay on” feature. It’s intended for lights, but it will work with any entity.