Another great Resinchem Tech production! Excellent tutorial and breakdown of the different ways to make things easier in Home Assistant. I thought it was a great point to mention that everything is located in one place as opposed to finding all the automations that may contain that entity. Great job as always! Keep up the Excellent work!
Thanks! I think that scripts are one of the more underutilized and least understood tools for newer Home Assistant users. I hope this video provides a least a bit of introduction and shows some situations where they can be used to make automations and routines more manageable and maintainable. As always, thanks for watching and thanks for the comment!
You are very welcome. I think that scripts are probably underutilized and maybe a bit misunderstood by those first starting out with Home Assistant. But they can be invaluable for created reusable groups of actions that are easier to maintain as your Home Assistant grows. Thanks for watching and the kind comment! I do appreciate it!
@@ResinChemTech Indeed. I’ve done a lot of scripting in other areas - so they made the most sense to me - but the duplicity of then using automations was confusing to me. Same with Groups vs scenes. Im going to try this in just a bit - but can you create groups using templates? Can you create a “outdoor” light group let’s say and include all lights in the “Outdoor” Area? That could make for some very nice behavior to add new features automatically by changing name and area assignment for example.
Hmm... that's an interesting idea and not something that I've tried. It would probably require YAML. There was an older way of creating groups in YAML that would actually create a group entity (although this method isn't recommended anymore - and it could be removed in later releases, I still have a handful of groups created this way). So I'm not sure, but if you can template the entities list, then it should theoretically be possible. Let me know what you find out!
@@ResinChemTech And the more I think about it - the more I think it has to be possible. I created a helper-sensor using templating for my garage door state...
Scripts can definitely help you create reusable blocks of actions and make it much easier to maintain those as you add new automations and routines in the future. I do use a few groups, but actually I don't use too many scenes. Instead I often use automations and/or scripts so that my "scenes" can be customized based on other factors, such as time of day, etc. But scenes are a great way to get started with setting up something like a movie night, party night, etc. Thanks for watching and taking a moment to leave a comment. It is appreciated!
I am just like the guy you mentioned. I'm just getting into scripts. I wasn't aware of the versatility of the different methods. Thank you for doing this video.
You are welcome! I do think that scripts are something that are probably underutilized, especially by those just starting out. But they can definitely make it easier to maintain and reuse sets of actions as your Home Assistant install grows over time. Thanks for watching... and taking a moment to leave a comment!
Off topic, but is that a Texas instruments 994a in display case at beginning. I taught myself basic language using it. I wrote many programs and remember using the cassettes to load and save. I also spent so much time fixing it. I used it so much that things wore out like keys, joysticks, cables and things. My father worked for TI and would bring parts home and I would fix it myself. This is how I got interested in computers and electronics. Thanks for the trip down memory lane and reminding me of time well spent with my father who is now gone.
Yep... a TI99/4A! Just like you, I taught myself BASIC on that machine and spent way too many hours writing my own games and applications (and yes... storing and loading from cassette!). I wish I would have kept the original, but I didn't. Luckily a college buddy remembered how fond I was of it and found one at a retro electronics fair and picked it up for me. It looks brand new and since I already have a TI99 emulator running on my arcade machine, I opted to turn that one into a display. I do have another video that shows a bit more about turning it into the display (as compared to the 'retail' tech-as-art display. To be honest, it is not a very good video, but if you do want to see a little bit more of the TI99 and how I did the display, you can check out that video if you want: ua-cam.com/video/Cmn-rtNKikY/v-deo.html But I did love my TI99/4A back in the day. Thanks for the comment!
@@ResinChemTech Similar stories to mine! I have a few TI-99/4A systems, including my original console and PEB. Taught myself BASIC with the great book it included and later Extended BASIC and some Assembly. It helped to form my career in the I.T. field later on. Nice job on the display video! (And this one as well!)
@richardneff Thanks! I never had the PEB... but wished I would have. Spent way too many hours in college writing code and playing games on the TI-99 when I should have been studying. But it was my introduction to writing code and probably played a big part in my eventual move over to the IT field/app developer later in my career. Thanks for sharing your experience!
Thanks for the breakdown! I am going to create a group for some of my WLED controllers and simplify a couple of the automations where everything is all discreet entities.
You are welcome! As I mentioned, you can group WLED controllers in Home Assistant, but it does work a bit differently than using the native WLED sync. But having options is always a great thing! Thanks, as always, for the comment!
How about a comparison between groups and rooms? You can turn on/off everything in a room together. And you are not restricted to one type like a group.
9:55 One side note to the light and switch not being able to be grouped. You can create a helper to 'Change Device Type of a Switch'. The entity created can then be grouped. I've done this to group dumb LED lights which are connected to Kasa plugs and switches.
Great tip! While it is no longer recommended (and why I didn't show it as an option), you can also create old style groups via YAML that allow you to combine different entity types like lights, switches, covers, etc. into a single group entity and control those different entity types as a group, albeit with some limitations on functionality (I still have a few of these original, old-style groups). As mentioned, Home Assistant provides a lot of flexibility and different ways to accomplish a given task. The ability to redefine a switch as another entity type is a great start. Unfortunately it currently only works for switches and you can't do the reverse... such as redefining something like a light, cover or lock as a switch. Well.. technically you can via YAML and templated entities, but not easily via just the UI editors and dropdowns. Still a great tip for those that want to group switches with other entity types. Thanks!
Just found your channel and do glad I have. I use SmartThings and Alexa but seriously looking into using HA. I have no experience with HA and after watching your video I wonder if you intend to do more basic “idiot guides” to HA. A basic beginners onwards overview would be helpful for I imagine for just more than myself. Great video and looking forward to seeing the next. Any recommendations on reference sources either literature or videos would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
Glad you found me too! I have a playlist of Home Assistant-related videos: ua-cam.com/play/PLqjDNeOVHOkflCfZDY2vJnVHud0m3n0Vz.html Many of these are "Home Assistant 101" videos target towards those just starting out with Home Assistant, others are for those with a little more experience. I try to vary my videos between Home Assistant videos and DIY electronics projects (many of which can also be used with Home Assistant). I do have video in the early planning stages targeting someone precisely in your situation... you've heard of Home Assistant but want to more about how it works and operates. Not sure when that video will be out as I have a couple of others in the works right now as well, but it should be in the next couple of months. Keep an eye out! Thanks for watching and taking a moment to leave a comment!
Thanks for this. Where I got confused with scenes is, I wanted to capture the state of , in the process of running an automation. Whatever states, say, the lights were before turning on the TV, restore them to that state when the TVs turned off. I guess I'd use scene.create with the automation to capture the light states, change them in the automation to what I want, then use scene.turn_on to restore the prior lighting?
I think you can do what you want by using scene.create in the automation and using snapshot_entities to capture the current state of whatever entities you want (like the lights). You can then restore the state(s) with another automation. Do note that scenes created this way only persist until the next time the configuration is loaded. Check out the documentation here: www.home-assistant.io/integrations/scene Under the section "Deleting dynamically created scenes", there is actually an example doing exactly what you are looking for, except it is using the opening and closing of a window to save/restore states instead of a TV turning off/on. Hope that points you in the right direction.
Another great Resinchem Tech production! Excellent tutorial and breakdown of the different ways to make things easier in Home Assistant. I thought it was a great point to mention that everything is located in one place as opposed to finding all the automations that may contain that entity. Great job as always! Keep up the Excellent work!
Thanks! I think that scripts are one of the more underutilized and least understood tools for newer Home Assistant users. I hope this video provides a least a bit of introduction and shows some situations where they can be used to make automations and routines more manageable and maintainable.
As always, thanks for watching and thanks for the comment!
Great explanation as always. Thanks.
Only 13 WLED projects in the basement. Get to work!! 😀
Yeah... it's a little over the top! Thanks for the comment.
This helped me understand the components much easier! Thanks for this one!
You are very welcome. I think that scripts are probably underutilized and maybe a bit misunderstood by those first starting out with Home Assistant. But they can be invaluable for created reusable groups of actions that are easier to maintain as your Home Assistant grows.
Thanks for watching and the kind comment! I do appreciate it!
@@ResinChemTech Indeed. I’ve done a lot of scripting in other areas - so they made the most sense to me - but the duplicity of then using automations was confusing to me. Same with Groups vs scenes.
Im going to try this in just a bit - but can you create groups using templates? Can you create a “outdoor” light group let’s say and include all lights in the “Outdoor” Area? That could make for some very nice behavior to add new features automatically by changing name and area assignment for example.
Hmm... that's an interesting idea and not something that I've tried. It would probably require YAML. There was an older way of creating groups in YAML that would actually create a group entity (although this method isn't recommended anymore - and it could be removed in later releases, I still have a handful of groups created this way). So I'm not sure, but if you can template the entities list, then it should theoretically be possible. Let me know what you find out!
@@ResinChemTech Will do - its now on my "List of things I want to try" ha!
@@ResinChemTech And the more I think about it - the more I think it has to be possible. I created a helper-sensor using templating for my garage door state...
Great video thank you! I've just started using scripts but haven't done groups or scenes yet. This will help me keep my HA organised!
Scripts can definitely help you create reusable blocks of actions and make it much easier to maintain those as you add new automations and routines in the future.
I do use a few groups, but actually I don't use too many scenes. Instead I often use automations and/or scripts so that my "scenes" can be customized based on other factors, such as time of day, etc. But scenes are a great way to get started with setting up something like a movie night, party night, etc.
Thanks for watching and taking a moment to leave a comment. It is appreciated!
I am just like the guy you mentioned. I'm just getting into scripts. I wasn't aware of the versatility of the different methods.
Thank you for doing this video.
You are welcome! I do think that scripts are something that are probably underutilized, especially by those just starting out. But they can definitely make it easier to maintain and reuse sets of actions as your Home Assistant install grows over time.
Thanks for watching... and taking a moment to leave a comment!
Off topic, but is that a Texas instruments 994a in display case at beginning. I taught myself basic language using it. I wrote many programs and remember using the cassettes to load and save. I also spent so much time fixing it. I used it so much that things wore out like keys, joysticks, cables and things. My father worked for TI and would bring parts home and I would fix it myself. This is how I got interested in computers and electronics. Thanks for the trip down memory lane and reminding me of time well spent with my father who is now gone.
Yep... a TI99/4A! Just like you, I taught myself BASIC on that machine and spent way too many hours writing my own games and applications (and yes... storing and loading from cassette!). I wish I would have kept the original, but I didn't. Luckily a college buddy remembered how fond I was of it and found one at a retro electronics fair and picked it up for me. It looks brand new and since I already have a TI99 emulator running on my arcade machine, I opted to turn that one into a display.
I do have another video that shows a bit more about turning it into the display (as compared to the 'retail' tech-as-art display. To be honest, it is not a very good video, but if you do want to see a little bit more of the TI99 and how I did the display, you can check out that video if you want: ua-cam.com/video/Cmn-rtNKikY/v-deo.html
But I did love my TI99/4A back in the day. Thanks for the comment!
@@ResinChemTech Similar stories to mine! I have a few TI-99/4A systems, including my original console and PEB. Taught myself BASIC with the great book it included and later Extended BASIC and some Assembly. It helped to form my career in the I.T. field later on.
Nice job on the display video! (And this one as well!)
@richardneff Thanks! I never had the PEB... but wished I would have. Spent way too many hours in college writing code and playing games on the TI-99 when I should have been studying. But it was my introduction to writing code and probably played a big part in my eventual move over to the IT field/app developer later in my career. Thanks for sharing your experience!
Great video, definitely referring to this later!
Thanks! I appreciate it!
Holy crap! Can't believe I just found you! Subscribed.
Welcome to the channel!
Thanks for the breakdown! I am going to create a group for some of my WLED controllers and simplify a couple of the automations where everything is all discreet entities.
You are welcome! As I mentioned, you can group WLED controllers in Home Assistant, but it does work a bit differently than using the native WLED sync. But having options is always a great thing!
Thanks, as always, for the comment!
How about a comparison between groups and rooms? You can turn on/off everything in a room together. And you are not restricted to one type like a group.
9:55 One side note to the light and switch not being able to be grouped. You can create a helper to 'Change Device Type of a Switch'. The entity created can then be grouped. I've done this to group dumb LED lights which are connected to Kasa plugs and switches.
Great tip! While it is no longer recommended (and why I didn't show it as an option), you can also create old style groups via YAML that allow you to combine different entity types like lights, switches, covers, etc. into a single group entity and control those different entity types as a group, albeit with some limitations on functionality (I still have a few of these original, old-style groups). As mentioned, Home Assistant provides a lot of flexibility and different ways to accomplish a given task.
The ability to redefine a switch as another entity type is a great start. Unfortunately it currently only works for switches and you can't do the reverse... such as redefining something like a light, cover or lock as a switch. Well.. technically you can via YAML and templated entities, but not easily via just the UI editors and dropdowns. Still a great tip for those that want to group switches with other entity types. Thanks!
Excellent explanations. 👍🏻
Thanks! And thanks for taking a moment to leave a comment.
This was helpful. Thank you.
You are welcome! I'm glad you found it helpful. Thanks for the comment!
Great video. Thanks 🙌
You are welcome. Thanks for the comment!
Well done, useful info.
Thanks... and thanks for the comment!
Just found your channel and do glad I have. I use SmartThings and Alexa but seriously looking into using HA. I have no experience with HA and after watching your video I wonder if you intend to do more basic “idiot guides” to HA. A basic beginners onwards overview would be helpful for I imagine for just more than myself. Great video and looking forward to seeing the next. Any recommendations on reference sources either literature or videos would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
Glad you found me too! I have a playlist of Home Assistant-related videos: ua-cam.com/play/PLqjDNeOVHOkflCfZDY2vJnVHud0m3n0Vz.html
Many of these are "Home Assistant 101" videos target towards those just starting out with Home Assistant, others are for those with a little more experience. I try to vary my videos between Home Assistant videos and DIY electronics projects (many of which can also be used with Home Assistant). I do have video in the early planning stages targeting someone precisely in your situation... you've heard of Home Assistant but want to more about how it works and operates. Not sure when that video will be out as I have a couple of others in the works right now as well, but it should be in the next couple of months. Keep an eye out!
Thanks for watching and taking a moment to leave a comment!
@@ResinChemTech Thank you for getting back to me. Looking forward to going over your videos and getting into the HA family.
Thanks for this. Where I got confused with scenes is, I wanted to capture the state of , in the process of running an automation. Whatever states, say, the lights were before turning on the TV, restore them to that state when the TVs turned off. I guess I'd use scene.create with the automation to capture the light states, change them in the automation to what I want, then use scene.turn_on to restore the prior lighting?
I think you can do what you want by using scene.create in the automation and using snapshot_entities to capture the current state of whatever entities you want (like the lights). You can then restore the state(s) with another automation. Do note that scenes created this way only persist until the next time the configuration is loaded. Check out the documentation here: www.home-assistant.io/integrations/scene
Under the section "Deleting dynamically created scenes", there is actually an example doing exactly what you are looking for, except it is using the opening and closing of a window to save/restore states instead of a TV turning off/on. Hope that points you in the right direction.