Simple Scheduler Addon

ArthurDent1975 · February 25, 2020, 8:39am

Hi everyone,
there is someone that wished to have a control panel to automate lights,switches and more?
Something where you can turn on/off a device at a specific time of day on specific days of the week?

I needed something like that, but I didn’t find anything around that was visual and easy to use.
So I’ve just created it on my own.
It calls “Simple Scheduler”
The idea is that it has to be simple, so that my wife could use it.

It works with:

light
scene
switch
script
camera
climate
cover
automation
input_boolean
media_player

This is my first addon, so please be kind
Let me know what you think about it. Any feedback will be appreciated.

If you also like so much my work and you want to convince me to stay up at night on that
just buy me a beer

CIAO!

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I set a timer but it switchs on/off at a wrong time
Be sure to set the correct timezone in Settings->General
The timezone used by the addon is written down in the grey footer

I set a timer but it doesn’t switch on/off
The time MUST be set in HH:MM format
Be sure to input time with leading zeros (e.g: 08:30)
Seconds are not allowed
If you set multiple times in one box do not use commas or other chars as separator. Just one (or more) space
Also check the previous point (timezone). Maybe it works but at the wrong time!

Does it support sunset / sunrise?
Yes! Just put the word “sunset” or “sunrise” in the time field!
You can also add a positive or negative offset (in minutes)

Coedy · February 25, 2020, 9:36am

This is amazing, would it work for heating?
(Imagine it would if it supports generic switches)

ArthurDent1975 · February 25, 2020, 9:40am

Hi @Coedy
it lists all entities that starts with switch.* and light.*

Se7enair · February 25, 2020, 9:41am

Do you know schedy?

Its not visual like Simple Scheduler, but it works with heating. And also lights and switches.

ArthurDent1975 · February 25, 2020, 9:44am

Hi @Se7enair
Yes, I took a look at it before start coding.
But as I said in main post, it has to be easy.
Can you imagine my wife writing yaml code to turn her washing machine on today at 11:00 am?

Se7enair · February 25, 2020, 9:46am

Of course, its the same with my wife. You could bring schedy to Lovelace to get a visual interface, but this seems to much work for me.

I posted the link for @Coedy, because he asked for heating support.

Coedy · February 25, 2020, 9:47am

Yeah I had seen that but not being a scripter I was immediately put off the idea of even trying it.
This however has really got my attention!

ArthurDent1975 · February 25, 2020, 9:49am

Heating support, in my case, is a switch.
Unless you/he mean climate control. I could add it, of course.
Maybe I will wait a few to understand what could be useful to community and add those features.
The addon is just born!

Se7enair · February 25, 2020, 9:51am

This could be a very good alternative to schedy!

@ArthurDent1975 at first I would start to support climate entities.
After that it would be nice to get some conditions to control the schedule. Like “set climate to 21°, but only if somebody is at home”.

Se7enair · February 25, 2020, 10:18am

I tried the addon. For the first, it is working fine.

i got a few ideas for improvements for you.
At first, as i said, conditions and supporting climate entitites.
Then it would be nice if i can turn on or off the schedule with the slider on the left. Not going into edit to disable it.
It also would be nice to select more than one entity. So if I may have a group of lights, I dont need a seperate schedule for each of them.
Then you can change the checkboxes in the edit view to the same circles you use in the normal view.
Thats all small improvements that make sense in my opinion.

I think the biggest improvement for now would be conditions. For example, the garden season starts. And I want to automatically control my lights in the garden. But only when somebody is at home and also the start point should be controlled by the position of the sun. So that the lights will only be turned on, when the sun is below the horizon.

febalci · February 25, 2020, 10:20am

Great work… Any future plans to add cover.XXXX_level or cover.XXXXX_switch?

broken.pipe · February 25, 2020, 10:33am

thanks a lot for this app! your next beer is paid … i just automated all the switches on the road and removed the previous automation. really good would be thermostats. from when to when to heat, in which mode (heat, auto, off). so just the basics. i tried schedy, but it really lacks a graphical user interface. i really like your user interface for the switches … clean and well arranged.

broken.pipe · February 25, 2020, 10:43am

what might be interesting would be to define sunrise and sunset as time. but i don’t know if this is possible with static json files.

tom_l · February 25, 2020, 11:49am

Nicely done!

I’d like to respectfully request if this could be expanded to include input_booleans and automatons as well?

ArthurDent1975 · February 25, 2020, 11:51am

Thank you so much!!!

You hit the point!
I put the word simple in the name for a reason…

By the way… you can never say…

ArthurDent1975 · February 25, 2020, 1:04pm

Oh my, there’s a lot of stuff in here…
Ok, let’s see…

Disable slider: well, you problably didn’t consider the mobile version. My wife only use the android app. It would be easy to tap on that by mistake. I even remove the icon in mobile view (the row become dimmed, so it is clear to understand).

Checkbox: Yes, that was my first idea. But it requires some javascript and a little effort to achieve that. It was easier this way. I primarly focused on the functionality. But it is in my mind.

More entities: I’m not sure it would be cozy. It would also make the editing more tricky and give user more chance to make a mess.

Condition: That’s far away from the pourpose of this addon. I never stop repeating that it has to be simple. Conditions are greatly implemented in HA, and they are mented for advanced user. You set the rule, you (mostly) never touch it again. This addon want to add something that was missing in HA, for (almost) everyday use. Last but not the least, Implement a condition engine in the addon would be very very very very complicated. (Did I say very?). I hope you will get my point

I call service.turn_on and service.turn_off which works for both switches and lights.
Covers have different services (service.open_cover, service.close_cover, and so on)
This would require a major change in code…

Thanks for the respect!
You can find your answers as for the above quote

123 · February 25, 2020, 1:23pm

Thank you for sharing this useful addition to Home Assistant. I don’t want to discourage further development but feel you should know that there is work underway to develop a scheduling integration.

To be clear, discussion started a year ago and it’s unknown how much more time is needed before it is ready to be released. In addition, it is the engine and not the accompanying UI that must also be developed to allow user’s to interact with the engine. Therefore it may be some time before we see anything that looks like the add-on you’ve created (but it will be released eventually).

AhmadK · February 25, 2020, 1:27pm

You need to be careful with your wishes because if you simply call homeassistant.turn_on/turn_off service it might end up like this

tl;dr for automations it should be automation.trigger service rather than homeassistant.turn_on/off

ArthurDent1975 · February 25, 2020, 1:36pm

Thank you for your advice.
I needed the scheduling right now, so I created it by myself.
It tooks me a week of work and it gave me the chance to understand a lot of things under the hood about HA, starting from docker.
When the scheduler integration will be ready, this addon will become useless.
In the meanwhile, I hope it helps the community!

Thanks again!

Se7enair · February 25, 2020, 2:06pm

Just a few things which come in mind when I tested.

You are right, the name says “simple”. So if you want to keep it simple, its already perfect.

More entities or conditions got the potential to make it a “difficult Scheduler”. But if you want to expand the capabilities of your addon, just put my notes to a future feature list and think about it
Or you can make a second addon. A simple scheduler and a universal scheduler.