Choose is a nice addition to automations, but after having looked at it, I’ve realized there’s very few of my automations which would benefit from it. What is far more needed in my opinion is an OR IF type statement, where we can group multiple conditions and actions under a single trigger. I have tons of automations which use the same trigger but slightly different conditions to notify different people for example. In these cases, it would need to evaluate each set of conditions and actions and launch all the ones that apply, instead of only one.
Seems like if we can do else, we could also do multiple IF’s… Here’s an example using choose of what I would want, only difference being that all the chooses should be applied if the conditions are right.
- id: someone_through_gate
alias: someone_through_gate
initial_state: 'true'
trigger:
platform: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.person_inside_gate
to: 'on'
action:
- choose:
- conditions:
- condition: and
conditions:
- condition: template
value_template: '{{ (as_timestamp(now()) - as_timestamp(states.automation.person_in_front.attributes.last_triggered | default(0)) | int > 600)}}'
- condition: state
entity_id: device_tracker.sean_s_iphone_12
state: 'home'
sequence:
service: notify.mobile_app_sean_s_iphone_12
data:
title: "Person Coming Through Gate"
message: "Looks like someone is going to or coming from the front gate to the front door"
data:
push:
category: camera
thread-id: "security"
entity_id: camera.front_stream
clickAction: /lovelace/4
- choose:
- conditions:
- condition: and
conditions:
- condition: template
value_template: '{{ (as_timestamp(now()) - as_timestamp(states.automation.person_in_front.attributes.last_triggered | default(0)) | int > 600)}}'
- condition: state
entity_id: device_tracker.alena_s_iphone
state: 'home'
sequence:
service: notify.mobile_app_alena_s_iphone
data:
title: "Person Coming Through Gate"
message: "Looks like someone is going to or coming from the front gate to the front door"
data:
push:
category: camera
thread-id: "security"
entity_id: camera.front_stream
clickAction: /lovelace/4
- conditions:
- condition: and
conditions:
- condition: template
value_template: '{{ (as_timestamp(now()) - as_timestamp(states.automation.person_in_front.attributes.last_triggered | default(0)) | int > 600)}}'
- condition: state
entity_id: device_tracker.sean_s_iphone_12
state: 'home'
sequence:
- service: mqtt.publish
data:
topic: !secret genesys_5490_notify_topic
payload: '{ "title": "Person Coming Through Gate", "message": "Looks like someone is going to or coming from the front gate to the front door", "iconUrl": "", "launchParams": "toast://open/http://10.10.10.20:8123/lovelace/8" }'
Yes. That’s correct. If the condition is met for the specific choose option, the sequence will always be launched, regardless of how many other chooses in the statements have also already been launched. If all the choose conditions are met, all sequences are launched. If none are met, none are launched.
I showed my example with the standard choose statement in place today which will result in an ELSE IF instead of an OR IF… So the syntax would somehow have to be modified to express that this is an OR IF instead… Could be
If I put them all under one choose action, they will all have the same condition. I want a single trigger to allow multiple actions, each depending on different conditions.
In the example I gave, I am trying to do this:
IF I see someone inside the gate
THEN:
-Notify my wife if she is home and if no one has been spotted in front in 10 minutes
AND:
-Notify me on my phone if I am home and no one has been spotted in front in 10 minutes
AND:
-Notify me on my computer if I am home and no one has been spotted in 10 minutes
(to be fair the last 2 could be grouped together now, but I plan to add another condition to the 3rd case where it checks if my computer is in use or not).
With the current choose statement you can only get this:
IF I see someone inside the gate
THEN:
-Notify my wife if she is home and if no one has been spotted in front in 10 minutes
OR:
-Notify me on my phone if I am home and no one has been spotted in front in 10 minutes
OR:
-Notify me on my computer if I am home and no one has been spotted in 10 minutes
Maybe I’m not understanding something, but I think your example will result in an ELSE IF, not an OR IF with current choose statement. With a new type of choose that can make an AND IF, it would work for the case I am asking for.
Oh wow, so I was missing the point then. Are you sure it will really execute the other choose statements if the first one evaluates to false though? I would think all of them would have to evaluate true for this to work, if one evaluated as false, it would break the chain, no?
I probably wasn’t clear when I said AND IF, but what I was really looking for was just multiple IF statements with no dependencies on each other. I guess this is really OR IF… I will change this in my statements above to make this more clear. My bad. It’s really OR IF I want.
That is exactly what my first example shows. Each of the choose statements are independent. If one does not evaluate to true it moves on to the next. If it does evaluate to true it executes the sequence before moving on to the next choose statement.
Hmm, I’ve been using it that way (the example code I showed is from a real automation), and I can only ever get the first condition/sequence pair to fire. This is consistent with what it shows in the docs:
The choose action can be used like an “if” statement. The first conditions/sequence pair is like the “if/then”, and can be used just by itself. Or additional pairs can be added, each of which is like an “elif/then”. And lastly, a default can be added, which would be like the “else.”
The example they show for this is this (notice the lack of nesting, but they still say this is an if/elif/else):
# Example with "if", "elif" and "else"
automation:
- trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: input_boolean.simulate
to: 'on'
mode: restart
action:
- choose:
# IF morning
- conditions:
- condition: template
value_template: "{{ now().hour < 9 }}"
sequence:
- service: script.sim_morning
# ELIF day
- conditions:
- condition: template
value_template: "{{ now().hour < 18 }}"
sequence:
- service: light.turn_off
entity_id: light.living_room
- service: script.sim_day
# ELSE night
default:
- service: light.turn_off
entity_id: light.kitchen
- delay:
minutes: "{{ range(1, 11)|random }}"
- service: light.turn_off
entity_id: all
Look closely. That’s one choose action with multiple conditions (and a default). That gives you if/then/else for each condition in the single choose action.
My example has seperate choose actions each with their own conditions. That gives you a whole bunch of individual if statements. Which is (I think) what you are after.
My code:
action:
- choose:
- conditon: {{ blah 1 }} # do this if true
sequence:
- ...
- choose:
- conditon: {{ blah 2}} # and then do this if true
sequence:
- ...
- choose:
- conditon: {{ blah 3 }} # and then do this if true
sequence:
- ...
- choose:
- conditon: {{ blah n-1 }} # and then do this if true
sequence:
- ...
- choose:
- conditon: {{ blah n }} # and then do this if true
sequence:
- ...
That example:
action:
- choose:
- conditon: {{ blah 1 }} # do this if true then exit the choose
sequence:
- ...
- conditon: {{ blah 2}} # else do this if true then exit the choose
sequence:
- ...
- default: # do this if none of the above then exit the choose.
sequence:
- ...
See the difference now?
Only one option in each choose gets executed but I have listed multiple choose statements, so each of them gets evaluated and actioned if true.
IF I see someone inside the gate # this your trigger (and maybe a condition)
THEN:
# first choose block
-Notify my wife if she is home and if no one has been spotted in front in 10 minutes
AND:
# second choose block
-Notify me on my phone if I am home and no one has been spotted in front in 10 minutes
AND:
# third choose block
-Notify me on my computer if I am home and no one has been spotted in 10 minutes
You only appear to have two choose blocks in your code so have a look at it and try again. I’d write it out but I’m on mobile.
Is it possible to do this in the Automations interface? And how would it look? (Sorry my YAML syntax is weak. I like the interface to limit my mistakes to logic errors )
Honestly I don’t use the UI for writing automations. But according to the release notes yes the choose action is available from the automation UI where you select “Action Type”.
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