"Toggling" multiple lights with multiple buttons

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Hello!

I have got Home assistant playing relly well with ESPHome on my narrowboat. it’s going really well using the app to control my lighting, but I’m starting to install some momentary buttons (that show up as binary sensors in Hass) so people without the app can also turn lights on and off, and now I need to build some automations, and I’m having a hard time getting started, it’s probably just me not looking from the right perspective at the logic, pointers greatly appreciated, not expecting anyone to solve this for me :stuck_out_tongue:

So, in the master bedroom, I have two sets of high level LED tape, “Starboard white LED’s” and “Port White LEDs” and I have Hass scenes for “Bedroom while light on” and “Bedroom all off”. In that room, I have two momentary buttons, that show up as binary sensors in Hass.

The behaviour I would like is that a press of either of the momentary buttons, to toggle a “something”, say let’s call it “Bedroom White light demand” and have that “something” call the scenes, typing this out I have uncovered my first gap in knowledge, what should that “something” be Im assuming a switch?

So I have had a little look at switch.template but I can’t seem to see how I would ingress an if_pressed for the binary sensors into the template?

And hints and tips would be greatly appreciated, be they down the switch.template path, or something I have missed entirely.

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Hello Jameath and welcome back :slight_smile:

What you’re trying to achieve is pretty easy:

  • Create an automation (use the UI for easier setup)
  • Trigger:
    • Trigger type: State
    • Entity: (your binary sensor(s))
    • From: (empty)
    • To: on
    • For: (empty, you could enter a time here to have a “long press”-functionality)
  • Condition: (probably none)
  • Actions:
    • Action type: Activate scene
    • Scene: (Your scene)
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Thanks, fedot!

I dont see how that is going “toggle” my lights, tap either of the buttons and the scene is called, but how do I get the lights to go off again, with the same action?

Having a closer look at the Automations UI, of the back of the trigger you have suggested, could I have a call service toggle a switch? then have the “lights on” scene activate when the switch comes on, and “lights off” activate when it’s off in another automation?

Thanks for the direction, Im very good at missing the simple route :stuck_out_tongue:

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Oh, well in that case replace the “activate scene” action with “call service” and use the “light.toggle” service.

Specify the entity_ids of the ones to be toggled.

If there are a lot of them, you might want to create a group first:
Use a normal group so the “toggle” command toggles each light individually: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/group/
Or a lights group https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/light.group/ to treat them as one light (all have the same state after toggling)
Difference is explained here: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/light#service-lighttoggle

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Boom!

That’s the right direction :slight_smile: thanks so much! back on the boat next weekend, it’s annoying, I’m going to build the automation now. But won’t actually be able to press the button in question for a week :stuck_out_tongue: and ill be sure to mark your message as “solved” if that’s me sorted.

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Thanks Fedot, the logical mistake i was making was to try and do everything with “scenes” I used to install big-boy Lutron and in that, scenes where king. Using lighting groups to make logical lighting entities out of discreet “lights” is exactly what i was after.

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