I have a hardware MQTT switch (standalone; eg, not connected to any other hardware, with an LED showing the toggle state) and two hardware lights. In HA, I have the hardware switch set up as switch.dining_room_couch and the lights as light.dining_room_1 and light.dining_room_2
The switch and both lights work fine, and update the entities fine.
I’m trying to rig things so that the hardware switch will turn on/off both lights, and status should match the hardware state of at least one of the lights. So turning on either light should result in the switch being on, turning off both lights should result in the switch being off, and toggling the switch should apply the same toggle (off or on) to both lights.
There are probably many ways to do this, but I’m trying to find the least complex way of doing things (minimum number of configurations/automations/scripts to make this work). The simplest configuration I could think of is to use a switch_template and group (which provides the same on/off logic that I want anyway), which almost works:
The result of this is that toggling the HA switch will toggle the entire set of hardware (switch + both lights). However, toggling the hardware switch will toggle the HA switch but not the lights, and similarly toggling both lights won’t toggle the hardware switch.
Anyone have experience in such a setup who is willing to share?
That will fix the switch to control the lights, but it won’t toggle the switch when the lights are both on/off (and without getting a bit fancier, if one light is on and the other is off, toggle isn’t helpful slight_smile:
That’s why I was trying to use the group (including the switch) and the switch template
The alternative is that I could get rid of the switch template, leave the group as-is and create 4 automations (one for each on/off scenario) - it just seems that there should be a cleaner way
If one light is on the group will be on. Toggling it will switch the group off, and hence both lights off. Is that not what you wanted?
If not, I think you’ll still need the group so you can determine the logic of whether at least one light is on, regardless of the status of the switch.
No, toggling the group toggled both individual lights, so if one was on and the other off, the toggle would switch them
If I’m already forced to use automation, the closest I have is this which does everything, except that the events cascade, so turning on light_1 causes switch to turn on which in turn causes light_2 to go on. It sucks because it’s 5 automations (two for the switch to toggle the lights, 2 for the lights to toggle the switch, and one to read the initial switch state on startup)
- alias: Dining Room Couch Switch On
hide_entity: True
action:
service: homeassistant.turn_on
entity_id: group.dining_room_couch
trigger:
platform: state
entity_id: switch.dining_room_couch
to: 'on'
- alias: Dining Room Couch Switch Off
hide_entity: True
action:
service: homeassistant.turn_off
entity_id: group.dining_room_couch
trigger:
platform: state
entity_id: switch.dining_room_couch
to: 'off'
- alias: Dining Room Couch Sync On
hide_entity: True
action:
service: homeassistant.turn_on
entity_id: switch.dining_room_couch
trigger:
platform: state
entity_id: group.dining_room_couch
to: 'on'
- alias: Dining Room Couch Sync Off
hide_entity: True
action:
service: homeassistant.turn_off
entity_id: switch.dining_room_couch
trigger:
platform: state
entity_id: group.dining_room_couch
to: 'off'
- alias: Dining Room Couch Initialize
hide_entity: True
action:
service_template: >
{% if is_state('group.dining_room_couch','on') %}
switch.turn_on
{% else %}
switch.turn_off
{% endif %}
entity_id:
switch.dining_room_couch
trigger:
platform: homeassistant
event: start
Hmmm, OK, I have to get ready for work but if nobody else chimes in I’ll have a head scratch and see if I can get my head around it and neaten it up for you
If you flick the switch, automation 1 will fire and turn on the lights
If you switch on one (or both) of the lights, automation 2 will fire and turn on the switch, but first it disables automation 1 so it doesn’t instantly switch them back off, and then re-enables automation 1
With one or both lights on:
You can change the lights around manually as much as you like, without triggering any automations until they both go off, at which point automation 2 fires again, disables automation 1 to prevent it undoing what we’re about to do, and then switches off the switch, before re-enabling the automation again.
Or you could flick the switch, triggering automation 1, which fires and switches off the lights.
I think that’s you all sorted in 29 lines of code - let me know
[edit] - you might need to do the disable and re-enable thing for the second automation in the first automation too, It’s 1.30am here and I can’t work out whether it will create an endless loop or not, so it might be 33 lines of code. But still fairly neat
hi @anon43302295
Nice! just what i was looking for, having 3 table lights i need to switch on/off together
related question:
on Hassio, why would an automation with a state checker not react correctly when a group is in the entity_id definition, and does work as supposed to (react on state changes of any group member) when all separate entity_id’s are in the entity_id section of the automation?
you use:
trigger:
platform: state
entity_id: group.dining_room_lights
in my setup i always have to use:
trigger:
platform: state
entity_id: 'group.dining_room_light1, group.dining_room_light2, group.dining_room_light3 '
btw, this might also be the case in the OP, so changing the entity_id’s there could help?
Ummm, not sure about the definition of entity_id’s off the top of my head, but try the various options and see which works best. group.something should change state only when the group itself goes on (one or more child is on) or off (all children are off) as I understand it.
It shouldn’t change when any of the children change, which is why using the group as the trigger platform should be the best for your specific case.
i guess it all depends on the use of your automation…
in case of the lights, it might seem very useful combining 3 table lights in =to the group.tablelights, and then be able to control those 3 lights with 1 slider/switch/colorpanel, and even use automations on it. Is that the case yet btw, i read a lot of issues of that not working as expected ?
in case of checking individual members of lets say the group.family, and displaying the absent and present members, my experience is we can’t use the group entity and show members, and need to use all entity_id’s of that same group…
Other case:
had to trigger an automation from a python.py using this group.family, to show who is online, and in the python this group name works fine, but the called automation needed all separate entity_ids, fire consequent actions
Well
hope to find the ultimate logic behind it someday.
Thanks,
you’re very helpful as is your repo!
Cheers,
Marius
I love the idea of the guard, but it doesn’t work reliably. Somehow HA doesn’t seem to guarantee the order of the events, and even with the guard, turning one light on will ultimately cause the other light to turn on, too
To clarify about the order - the race condition is whether the turning the automation back on happens before or after the event of toggling the switch hits the event bus
slight_smile:
