I know it’s been mentioned in previous years but nothing have come from it and I for one would still like very much to be able to create multiple lists inside home assistant
I wanted to create the same WTH myself.
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This has been a loooong standing request. +1
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This also becomes much more than just a shopping list then. You can have todo lists which are automatically populated. Imagine if when a device battery starts getting low, it adds an item to put it on charge.
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At the moment I have to add keywords to my single shopping list so I get notifications if I near a number of defined shopping zones and the matching keyword is in the list. This is cumbersome.
Having more than one shopping list would mean I could have one for each of my shopping zones without the need to remember to add the keyword to the list.
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Personally I think they should just be LISTS with some special TYPES like shopping that all offer the same core list service but some TYPES have specific functions.
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To extend this idea you could have lists be used in automations where you iterate through them, maybe add things to them via other speech to text integrations…
- Music / Video playlist / queues
- an automation cycle that is a list of entities? IE turn lights on and off in a list that you can quickly change unlike a group
- Chore lists for kids ?
Or as this WTH states simply have several of the same type of list like shopping.
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Getting multiple lists would be a great start. Being able to automate off of changes to list would be stretch goal IMO.
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This is great idea. Maybe I’ll do something like that next.
Right now I’ve created shortcuts for items I often buy, so I can add them with 1 click.
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The playlist suggestion there has made me realise that a “list” might not even be something user interactable. The media player integration could have a “current playlist” which is read only ( update only by integrations) for use in automations.
For the “automation cycle”, there may already be a way to do this. If you define a select with your “automations” as items in it, I think there is a service to move the select to the next item. Then you set up an automation for when the select changes. Depends how easily you want the list to be updatable as to if it would work for your scenario or not though.
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Agreed - I would say the shopping list should be one example of “list” entities perhaps - with services to add / delete / modify parts of that list - currently, you can’t really do that much with the shopping lists in automations etc.
Woops I didn’t see this WTH post with much higher votes! I will add my thoughts on how I would like to use multiple lists here:
"Why can’t we have multiple lists? Are we out of space? 
It would be nice to use the “Shopping list” as a To-Do or reminder list, that is able to hold multiple lists.
I would like to have a morning list that gets checked off as I do my morning routines, an actual shopping list, and an evening list. Each that get controlled, edited, updated, and reset at different times by HA.
With multiple lists I could have a screen showing an “Active Items” list for example that shows dynamic tasks that still need to be done. Such as moving the laundry from the washer to the dryer before it gets smelly. (After automatically knowing the washer finished with my power monitor for example.)
Having only 1 list really limits the possibilities. The next “step up” appears to be using something like Grocy. That is a very large step up in complexity, for just needing multiple lists HA can mess with.
Thank you, have a good day."
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Given the various threads I’ve seen related to this recently I’ve been thinking we just need a generic ordered “list” helper that is distinct from the drop-down helper which is the closest I can think of to this in the currently implemented helpers.
Status of that helper should probably be the number of items in the list.
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A generic list helper would be nice but I would like something that can be updated and edited by the end user in the front end like a shopping list but also generates events with every update and can be consumed / iterated through in an automation.
Chore / Shopping list updated? Generate a notification to X if the list has gotten longer or shorter.
Change the watering schedule zone list to exclude the garden as it is now out of season and we don’t need that zone turned on again till planting season.
Lists that are easy to change and update ether Text or Object lists would be great for many automation options… Maybe if the garbage can lids nolonger close the “take out the trash” chore gets added to some ones chore list? Maybe if the batteries are low in some devices you add a “change / pickup CR2023 battery for X device name” to the shopping or chore list.
Could think of the revers as well, could have automations inject items into the shopping list or daily chore lists based on
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Can’t you accomplish all this with input_selects? They have a list in the backend and you can iterate on the options with jinja filters. If my wife asked me to create multiple shopping lists for different zones, with the ability to send notifications when nearing a zone, this is how I’d implement it today.
To be fair, I didn’t know there was a built-in shopping list. But looking at it I’m not even sure I’d use that rather than an input_select. The only downside I see is that there’s no frontend so you’d have to implement it with an input_text entity yourself, and it would be difficult to add “completed” checkboxes rather than just removing an item from the list.
agree, lists in general is the best option.
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I would go one step further and change the integration to a chores/todo integration as suggested here WTH don't we have a Chores/Tasks/Todo's automation/integration
But that said a simple multiple shopping list would be a nice start.
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I’d go for a generic helper for lists that has services to add, remove, change, tick, purge items.
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I’d love tabs to organize the list (not sure that is considered “multiple” lists but it seems like a reasonable enhancement over the current function.
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I agree with the above, we should have instead of a shopping list a Multiple lists manager:
Id love to be able to set up multiple lists with reminders for multiple shops so whenever i go to a specific shop or place (that i dont go often) i get a reminder through the zones option; but also would like to make a chores list / to-do list for reminders that i can fill up using stt.
For example i have synced my shopping list to todoist and todoist to alexa so whenever i input items through my house echo devices they show in my alexa / todoist shop list / HA shopping list and vice-versa.
Both Alexa and Todoist have the option to also add a to-do list but im not able to replicate what i did above because we cant use more than one list in HA.
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