I live alone yet I do have people visiting quite often and I am scratching my head how to EASILY handle automations when I have people over …
My current idea is to have a helper / boolean toggle that I manually switch on and off… But as someone with severe adhd I know I will forget to switch it back off when they leave lol So I was considering also linking it to calendar entries an basically, whenever I expect to have visitors, to add a specific entry there…
This should take care of my routine automatons (the ones I am worried about are the ones that trigger when I leave home, or my nighttime routines, etc.)
Other things that come to mind are:
I should probably create automation that generates keys for the locks and the alarm , based on the calendar entry
Same thing with WiFi access - generate a guest password
Disable all automations that announce things around the house as those tend to freak people out, I’ve noticed lol
Any other things that you can recommend? Anything similar you’ve done that you don’t mind sharing?
I do not want to deal with their phones present / not present on the network, it is 2025 and a lot of people do not bother connecting to a wifi as their phones have a pretty fast 5g (faster than my wifi lmao)
I have created a toggle called “Guests Visiting”. It is placed in the condition for every automation that I do not want running when guests are over. The automation checks to see if Guests Visiting is On and does not execute the automation. Another way you could also accomplish this task is having an automation that disables all automations that you do not want to run when Guests are visiting.
You could also use this toggle to be a condition on whether things were announced inside of your automations.
Whenever I create an automation, I always consider whether I want this to run when guests are over. If not, then I place the check in the conditions.
We basically have a button (or three) that is placed in different locations near our entrances that we can push that turns that toggle on. That way if someone comes over for a surprise visit, we just reach over and press the button.
I am new to HA, so I still have a lot to learn. However I too have been considering integrating my calendar so that it can automatically flip this toggle according to a key word in the calendar. Basically make it flip on when they arrive and flip off when guests leave a week later. Only problem is getting others in the household to remember to update the calendar when visitor plans change.
Good luck! Keep us informed on what you decide to do. I am interested in learning new ways to accomplish this task or creating new ways to implement it.
I have a helper entity called “Guest Mode” which is selectable between “off” and three different areas (or combo of) where a guest might stay in my house. When enabled it disables all speakers in that area that might disturb them, and modifies a lot of things about how my house operates - like when it wakes up, which is automatic based on motion, what and when it announces things, how those areas act when motion is detected, etc. I also leave instructions in clear view with a QR code to my guest wifi, typical voice commands they can use and what-not.
I also just have a button to handle it.
The calendar is a good idea too, since you can then handle multiple guest overlapping and you can do it in advance.
For my heating I have made a vacation button, that when activated require me to input a date for returning to normal mode, which could also be used for guests. It is probably a lot simpler than a calendar, since you just need a trigger on the date that have been set, but it can then not handle multiple guest and planning in advance.
Yeah I display a QR code on my control tablet with the guest access wifi but I have found that a lot of people (AND MY MOM ) do not like dealing with automatons … so I am trying to make my automation completely invisible whenever someone is over, lol
So I was considering also linking it to calendar entries an basically, whenever I expect to have visitors, to add a specific entry there…