I’m an HA Noob, and would really appreciate help with the following automations.
They work as expected other than the last switch (switch.sonoff_100067cf36) not turning off when the “- id: goodnight_lights_off” automation triggers.
I have a feeling it has something to do with the “- id: motion_outside_lights_on” automation possibly keeping the status of the switch high, but I don’t know why.
###############################################################
## Toggle bedtime status
###############################################################
- id: bedtime_status_on
alias: Turn on bedtime status at bedtime setpoint
trigger:
- platform: template
value_template: "{{ states('sensor.time') == (states.input_datetime.bedtime.attributes.timestamp | int | timestamp_custom('%H:%M', False)) }}"
action:
- service: homeassistant.turn_on
entity_id:
- input_boolean.bedtime_status
- id: bedtime_status_off
alias: Turn off bedtime status at sunrise
trigger:
- platform: sun
event: sunrise
action:
- service: homeassistant.turn_off
entity_id:
- input_boolean.bedtime_status
###############################################################
## Lights on at Sunset and off at bedtime
###############################################################
- id: sunset_lights_on
alias: Turn on lights at sunset
trigger:
- platform: sun
event: sunset
offset: "-01:00:00" #1hour before sunset
action:
- service: homeassistant.turn_on
entity_id:
- switch.81358500cc50e3cebafd #Study Lamp
- switch.sonoff_1000641867 #Garden Room Lamp
- switch.81358500cc50e3ce7ef0 #Utility Lamp
- switch.sonoff_100067cf36 #Outside Lights
- id: goodnight_lights_off
alias: Turn off lights when input_boolean.bedtime turns on
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: input_boolean.bedtime_status
to: 'on'
action:
- service: homeassistant.turn_off
entity_id:
- switch.81358500cc50e3cebafd #Study Lamp
- switch.sonoff_1000641867 #Garden Room Lamp
- switch.81358500cc50e3ce7ef0 #Utility Lamp
- switch.sonoff_100067cf36 #Outside Lights
###############################################################
## Outside Lights on motion
###############################################################
- id: motion_outside_lights_on
alias: Turn on outside lights when the courtyard or cartlodge doorbell sense motion
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.ring_courtyard_motion, binary_sensor.ring_cartlodge_motion
to: 'on'
condition:
- condition: state
entity_id: input_boolean.bedtime_status
state: 'on'
action:
- service: homeassistant.turn_on
entity_id: switch.sonoff_100067cf36
- service: timer.start
entity_id: timer.outside_lights_trigger
- id: motion_outside_lights_off
alias: Turn off outside lights 10 minutes after trigger
trigger:
- platform: event
event_type: timer.finished
event_data:
entity_id: timer.outside_lights_trigger
condition:
- condition: state
entity_id: input_boolean.bedtime_status
state: 'on'
action:
- service: homeassistant.turn_off
entity_id: switch.sonoff_100067cf36
In order to help you, you will need to format the configuration you posted so that we can easily read it.
Put three consecutive back-ticks ``` on their own line.
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Put three consecutive back-ticks ``` on their own line below whatever you just pasted.
The condition spacing seems off, so I’m not 100% sure that would be the issue. How sensitive are the motion sensors? Could a tree be close enough that it would turn on the sensor?
automations don’t work like that. they only have any effect on devices at the moment they are told to run. If the automation turns on a light and one second later another automation turns the light off it will turn off regardless of the state of the first automation. The only time the first automation will effect the light again is if that automation re-triggers and only then will it turn the light back on.
Does the last light never turn off with that automation or is it just occassionally?
You could try that and it could help to narrow down any connection issues.
However, I have heard of and seen once or twice myself that sometimes when operating a bunch of devices at once that HA gets “confused” and fails to switch them all. Usually it was only when operating around 10 or more things in my case tho.
The HA confusion is a bit disappointing. I will try changing the order and report back.
Do you have suggestions for a work around if it turns out to be a HA bug? Would you suggest creating multiple automations and split the switching of the devices?
if it comes down to that then you could list everything as it is in your automation right now then add a one second delay then call the same turn_off service with the devices in the reverse order as the first section. it’s kind of clunky but it will probably catch everything then.
I would be really surprised if HA choked on only four items in the list so I would definitely try to find another possible issue before it was determined to be HA. Maybe it’s just a network issue? Or a sonoff connection problem?
Just for fun, try using Scenes to control the switches and see if it cures the problem of the lone straggler.
Your automations will use the scene.turn_on service to activate either scene.switches_on or scene.switches_off.
- id: sunset_lights_on
alias: Turn on lights at sunset
trigger:
- platform: sun
event: sunset
offset: "-01:00:00"
action:
- service: scene.turn_on
entity_id: scene.switches_on
- id: goodnight_lights_off
alias: Turn off lights when input_boolean.bedtime turns on
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: input_boolean.bedtime_status
to: 'on'
action:
- service: scene.turn_on
entity_id: scene.switches_off
Here are the two scenes:
scene:
- name: switches_on
entities:
switch.sonoff_100067cf36: on
switch.81358500cc50e3cebafd: on
switch.sonoff_1000641867: on
switch.81358500cc50e3ce7ef0: on
switch.34455053cc50e3d64cf6: on
switch.53303740cc50e310bc75: on
- name: switches_off
entities:
switch.sonoff_100067cf36: off
switch.81358500cc50e3cebafd: off
switch.sonoff_1000641867: off
switch.81358500cc50e3ce7ef0: off
switch.34455053cc50e3d64cf6: off
switch.53303740cc50e310bc75: off
I’m not sure how HA structurally (right word?) handles scenes compared to just regular switches or the generic “homeassistant.x” service call so I’m really just interested to know…
Is there something in the way HA handles things that would/should make any difference?
Ditto. The OP has discovered a strange corner-case where the usual approach (calling the service with a list of entities) seems to hiccup and omit the final entity. Let’s turn lemons into lemonade and use this odd situation for testing other ways of turning on/off multiple switches. What other approaches will work (or will not)?
Your suggestion to control each switch individually was proven to work.
Adding a 1- second delay between each service call gives the system more time to propagate each command but causes the nth light to respond n seconds later.
Another way would be to create a group containing the switches and turn the group on/off. Tom_I suggested trying this approach.
Yet another way is via scenes which provide a bit more flexibility because a scene can do more than simply turn an entity on or off. Although, admittedly, all that extra flexibility is not needed for this application.
