Is there a way to turn on or off a group of automations at the same time. Kinda like a shortcut. Like for example if there was 2 automations, one for the front door and one for the back door. They both have their different automations that if the door is opened then send a notification. However if you want to enable them you have to go into the automations and turn on the automation individually. And when your down you have to go back in and turn them off individually. But is there a way to like press one button to turn both the automations on at the same time as well as off. I can see this being useful if you have like 10 devices and you just press one button that lets say arms the house for all doors and sensors and if something is triggered then sound the alarm. Instead of going through the big list and finding the correct ones to turn on or off.
Is there a way to do this?
Because if it’s not it would be a really nice simple feature.
I would do that with a virtual switch. Predicate the individual automations on the virtual switch’s state and then just use the virtual switch to turn the group on or off.
This is what Location Mode and virtual switches are typically used for. In yiur other automations use these items as preconditions and they essentially work as filters.
I’m having trouble configuring the virtual switch, where do I do that in IDE, all I see is just adding the switch but in the app and it just shows the virtual switch. I don’t see an option to have it change the status of automation, I can only have it trigger a smart device like a light or siren.
So the virtual switch is essentially a flag, something that displays as either or or off. That’s all it does.
The other piece is in your existing automations that you want to run at the same time. Go into each of those and set the IF to if the virtual switch is ON, then . . whatever you are doing for the automation. Do that for each of the automations, then flipping the virtual switch to ON will cause all of them to run.