Brad RomanceOct 26, 2024

I’ve had a productive evening. 😉 I’ve set up a “holidays” option in #HomeAssistant so the lights to do different things automatically just by selecting whichever holiday it is. Here’s the #halloween setting! 🎃

The camera really doesn’t do these lights justice, they look much better in person! The flickering isn’t just on and off, there are multiple zones in the lamp and they kinda flow from one to the next rapidly sometimes, stutter on and off at other times. I staggered them deliberately so they’re not doing the same thing at the same time.

Now I just need to programme settings for other holidays. Christmas next, I guess!

Show threadBrad Romance

For now I’ll select the holiday manually, but when I automate that I might set it to use a calendar instead. That way I don’t have to create automations to change the input select for whichever holiday, I just have to use the calendar event as a condition in my automations. #HomeAssistant

I also need to figure out how to select different folders for music for the #BigRedButton so we have suitable music for the #BathroomDisco for whichever holiday it is.

Oct 26, 2024 at 12:48amWeb
Show threadBrad RomanceOct 26, 2024
Sorted, now I just need to check for this attribute in my automations. 👍🏻 #HomeAssistant
Show threadBrad RomanceOct 29, 2024

Ok so I’ve slightly overcomplicated this by using an input select as an override, in case I want to manually use the holiday colours etc on another day, or disable them.

That’s all working great, but now my automations are ridiculously long with so many conditions for each holiday. Which has led me down a rabbit hole of trying to re-use bits of code rather than duplicating sections over and over again with only slight differences.

Best I’ve managed so far is Anchors and Aliases, one for each holiday’s conditions, but they have to be specified in every YAML file. I feel like I could do better with templates but I’m just not good enough with them to do it. #HomeAssistant

Show threadPete KeenOct 29, 2024

@brad when doing complicated stuff like this I tend to drop down to pyscript (in hacs). I can compose the logic however I want in python and then just call it as a service from an automation.

That said I have my Halloween lights set up as an #ESPHome effect. I then have a #HomeAssistant scene named "Halloween lights" and use the scheduler component (also from hacs) to turn it on and off at appropriate times.

Show threadBrad RomanceOct 29, 2024
@zrail Interesting. But my python is about as good as my jinja sooooo 😅
Show threadAndy McGuire 🐕Nov 3, 2024
@brad I mean... I would just add a description to each holiday that matches the input select option. That way when the calendar entry becomes active I would use the trigger.calendar_event.description to set the input select to the correct holiday.
Show threadAndy McGuire 🐕Nov 3, 2024
@brad use trigger.event to set the input select to a holiday when the value is start and set it to whatever passes as a default option - eg no holiday - when the value is end.
Show threadBrad RomanceNov 3, 2024
@asjmcguire (also, hi! Long time no see!)
Show threadAndy McGuire 🐕Nov 3, 2024

@brad I'm always around - I just struggle to remember things exist. I go through phases. I completely forget X or Fedi exist, and then I get a notification and it reminds me that they exist. Object permanence 😉 How have you been?

In this case the reason I came back is because I was going through articles in FreshRSS and if you use the hashtags I am subscribed to - you pop up in my RSS reader 😛

Show threadBrad RomanceNov 3, 2024
@asjmcguire hmmm I like the input select being a secondary control, and being able to use “off” if I don’t want it to trigger the holiday lights for any reason.