I wanted to share a little trick I’ve been using to create what is essentially an input boolean (like in Home Assistant) but directly in the Aqara app. In my case, my window covers open automatically every morning at 8 AM. That’s fine most of the time… except when I have guests sleeping in the room.
To set this up, I first created a new automation in Aqara with a clear name such as Mode Guest – Day or Mode Guest – Night. This automation doesn’t need to perform any real action; mine just stops a sound alert but the key is that you can turn it on or off manually from the automations list.
Next, in any automation that I want to control with Guest Mode, I add a condition that checks if the Guest Mode automation is disabled. For example, in my “Cover – Open – 8 AM” automation, the trigger is “Every day at 8:00” and the conditions are that Mode Guest – Night is disabled and Mode Guest – Day is disabled. If Guest Mode is enabled, the condition fails and the covers stay closed.
When guests are staying over, I simply toggle Guest Mode on, and all automations with this condition will pause automatically. Once the guests leave, I turn Guest Mode off and everything runs normally again without needing to edit each automation individually.
The Aqara app treats the on/off state of an automation as a condition that can be checked in other automations. By using a “dummy” automation as a global switch, you can replicate the flexibility of an input boolean from Home Assistant, but natively inside Aqara. This approach has made it easy for me to manage not only guest visits but also seasonal changes, vacation settings, or even kids’ nap time, etc!
Hope this helps and gives you some new ideas!
Marc
