WTH is there no way to create or edit scenes without realtime state changes?

It isn’t at all intuitive that editing a scene will immediately apply it. This is often incredibly inconvenient, and sometimes potentially dangerous. I might want to edit a scene involving a door lock, or a valve or switch that controls an important appliance, or any number of things where actually applying it would be undesirable. It seems like the default should be to be able to edit and make changes without those being applied in real life, with a “Preview Scene” option to use if desired.

Thank you for bringing this up. When first exploring this “feature” I thought a fuse has blown :smiley:

Since then the few scenes I have are only edited in YAML mode… this feature request could bring back users safely to the UI :+1:

3 Likes

I don’t use scenes for this very reason. Because they’re time sensitive and if I think “oh, I’m just going to go in and edit this scene real quick” and then it turns on the lights where people are sleeping.

15 Likes

This feature request is here for quite a while, good to bring it up in the WTH month: Improve Scene editor, allow scene edits without setting devices' states

6 Likes

This would be nice. I ran into an issue trying to set Playlists for WLED controllers in themes. However, setting it causes a real-time update to the entity, which instantly removes the Playlist setting, and instead updates the Scene settings as the Playlist executes.

For reference, I have an “Animation” play on my WLED controller while the projector screen lowers, then settles on a solid color nearly 30 seconds later. Would prefer being able to set this as a Scene rather than adding it to a script.
And while I can technically edit this in YAML, it would require I edit it in YAML every time I need to make a change, as the real-time updates remove the WLED Playlist setting every time.

…also making changes at night when people are asleep, which is when I do most of my tinkering :slight_smile:

1 Like

It is useful when ‘tuning’ a scene to see the effect real-time, but agree it could be better as a toggle on the edit to preview changes as you make them.

1 Like

Yes please! This is one of the few things about Home Assistant that has me going “What the heck?!”.

1 Like

The iOS Home app has a “Test This Scene” button. That’s a good UX flow in my opinion.

1 Like

I couldn’t agree more with this. No option to disable this is baffling. Makes it very annoying to slightly tweak a light setting and then resave the scene, because you have to FIRST have gone into the scene before you tweak the light.

1 Like

In some cases, I like to be able to SEE the scene as I create it. But, in other cases, I only want to change it without having it happen right now. So, I think the “live preview” option is the way to go. And it needs to default to NOT doing a live preview (until you check the box or hit the button), otherwise, the whole point is missed.

3 Likes

Copy that :+1:

This one… very annoying to have a morning / evening scene. And when there is time in the evening, checking that morning scene will open up all the covers around the house…

Just don’t apply things immediately and have a preview toggle or something (just like in the automations) to see if the scene fits your wishes.

1 Like

Any news on this? Imagine working on home/away scenes with alarms, HVAC cnbtrols etc. How to edit away scene at home with bells ringing in the background. Maybe the most annoying thing in HA.

1 Like

Absolutely agree, including the annoying and often dangerous potential. Especially true with Alarms, Window Blinds and Garage Doors going up and down incessantly! Any news on this? Can’t be that complicated to implement given that virtually no other system or program is designed in this way…

2 Likes

Agree with all of the above.
I have a “Go to Bed” Scene that I don’t want to activate when I edit edit or even just want to know what’s in it…
Should be a “Live” trigger on the edit window and turned off by default.

Thanks

Agreed! Scenes should be editable like Automations with a manual “Run”. If someone wants to save current state, this should be something that is could be enabled or triggered manually. Editing a text file to get around the counterintuitive behavior is not a good solution.

+1

This will hopefully get implemented soon. Every time I edit my goodnight scene I have to make sure no one is going to open an entry door because one of the scenes actions is to enable the home alarm. Always seemed strange that the scene ran while editing - glad to see I’m not alone here.

1 Like

People reading this need to be voting this up: