I’ve been diving into the world of smart lighting automation, and I’m absolutely thrilled with how much I’ve been able to streamline my home’s lighting setup. One thing I’ve been particularly focused on is optimizing the automation scripts to ensure they run as efficiently as possible, especially with the growing number of lights in my system.
Initially, I was using a straightforward group command to turn off all lights in the house. However, with over 40 lights, I noticed a significant delay. It seemed like the system was iterating through every single light, which wasn’t ideal. So, I decided to get a bit more creative with my scripting.
I came across some great resources and examples online that inspired me to write a template script targeting only the lights that are currently on. The idea was to reduce the number of commands the system processes, thereby improving efficiency. Here’s what I came up with:
yaml
‘48739802483908’:
alias: Test turning off lights
sequence:
- service: homeassistant.turn_off
data_template:
entity_id: >
{% for state in states.light -%}
{%- if state.state_with_unit == “on” %}
{{state.entity_id}}
{% endif -%}
{%- endfor -%}
The goal was to have the script check the current state of each light and only turn off those that are active. Unfortunately, when I ran the script, I encountered an error: Invalid service data for light.turn_off: Entity ID light.1st_floor_kpl__b light.1st_floor_kpl__c light.1st_floor_kpl__d light.dining_room_micro light.dining_room_switch is an invalid entity id for dictionary value @ data['entity_id'].
After some troubleshooting, I realized the issue was with how the entity IDs were being handled. It seemed like the script was trying to process them as a single string rather than individual entities. I reached out to the community for advice, and someone suggested modifying the template to ensure each entity ID is properly separated.
This experience has been a fantastic learning opportunity. It’s amazing how a small tweak can make such a big difference in functionality. I’m now more confident in experimenting with my scripts and can’t wait to explore more ways to optimize my smart home setup. If anyone has tips or alternative approaches, I’d love to hear them! 