When to Use Home Assistant Automations, Scripts, and Scenes

This week I wanted to talk about Automations, Scripts, and Scenes because the reality is they all do similar things. And knowing which one to use may not always be clear.

So in this video, we talk about how they compare, breakdown the pieces of each one, and I walk you through when I use each of them.

So if you find yourself questioning which one to use in Home Assistant, stick around because we are about to automate some boring stuff.

Here are the video chapters:

00:00 - When to Use Home Assistant Automations, Scripts, and Scenes - Intro
00:54 - Home Assistant Automations
03:19 - Home Assistant Scripts
05:27 - Home Assistant Scenes
06:40 - Wrapping it Up

Who am I?

My Name is Jeff. I am an Automator of boring things and a huge Home Assistant fan. I also live in a house that tweets.

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[bgable]

First video, of all the ones I've watched, that's broken this down clearly the way you do. I've read through most of the HA docs and thought they give some insight to the particular item, the docs leave a far cry for explaining how everything "integrates" together into the BIG picture. THANKS !!!

[KaidoKurrikoff]

Great breakdown of the usecases! Keep it up, that was very well explained.

[MisteurMarchand]

I use scenes to make automation more simple to manage. As an exemple, I have create a blackout scene per room, that contain every devices that i want to be off set in that state, and an automation link to a button that i press when going to bed. That automation calls every blackout scene. I find it easier to manage. If i add a new device or move one, i just make the change in the scene corresponding to the room.

[burner]

Nice video!
I would like to create custom light effects for my hue lights in front of my house (candle, Christmas theme, ...) but I still struggle to know what I should use.

[PersonXes]

Thanks for the video. So far I've not used scripts or scenes. I've only used node red automations where I can also avoid repeating things which I'm doing in multiple automations (for example by creating a subflow for the repetitive part). Have not seen the need for anything else so far :-)

[tomaszgasecki]

Sometimes one may encounter some unexpected lights behavior when using scenes. There is a number of devices which cannot accept change of brightness and color at the same time. As a result or your brightness is changing with color remaining from previous scene or opposite. When calling scene second time it adjusts the rest. In such cases scripts ate better option. Alternatively one may set to separate scenes for controlling light color and brightness.

[RNMSC]

Not sure if 'scene's are supposed to be used this way, but as far as I can tell, the most I can really do with them is put together ad-hoc collections of devices, that an action or script can turn on. I like this over groups in that there are times when I'd like to control several individual bulbs or outlets in different rooms. (dawn and dusk routines to turn on lights at or near entries to the house, a midnight to dawn night light taking one of the living room bulbs, and a bulb in the kitchen, and perhaps a bulb at the top of the basement stairs (I live in MN, basements are a useful thing here.) are just a couple of examples.) Scenes so far appear to give me the ability to collect those devices for automations to run against, though I'm running into 'fine tuning' issues like being able to set the brightness of bulbs in a scene. (Perhaps because I'm using them wrong?)

I have no problem with the idea that all of this can be scripted, with automation triggering scripts based on just haven't gotten to the point where I can do that editing in the .yaml files. (Hoping to avoid the 'there's entirely too much to work on here, and I've got a life...' level of abandoning the concept.

For now, small steps, mostly in automation, which makes this not quite as clean to update as I'd like. (changing bulbs or sensors affecting multiple automations, so have to update multiple places.)

[WPGinfo]

Interesting, however I am not quite sure if I understand it yet? I am struggling to 'translate' common situations into HomeAssistant-settings be they automations, scripts or scenes.
I have successfully set up a few simple things, but struggle with the slightly more complicated stuff. I hope watching this video a few more times will help me create / fix a few settings and get the results I want. Somehow I feel I utilize only a small percentage of the potential of HA-systems.

[FedericoGranata]

I prefer to use node red for my automations (I'm a JS developer and I used node red long before home assistant) and I wondered about the difference between trigger and condition but I never really try to learn more. Thank you

I'm missing templates in your list automations, scripts and scenes. When to use templates? Are templates different compared to automations. Sorry for this newbie quesiton.

[Shaqk]

Interesting video. But you are mentioning something that I'm trying to figure out; You mention that scripts can be published to my voice assistant (Google Assistant in my case) and used there.
I have a Nabu Casa subscription, so there is no manual setup. I have also published a script to Google Assistant via Configuration -> Home Assistant Cloud -> Manage entities. But I don't know how to use it in Google Assistant with voice commands. For example; Hey Google, TV Time, or Open garage.
Do you have a video on that?'
Thanks.

[JeeWee]

I like the way you explain things but unfortunately I cannot listen to your videos to long because I cannot filter out the 'music' and it is not what I want if I want to learn something. If I want music I listen to music of my own choice.
To bad people make great videos but exclude a part of the audience by adding 'music'.
I hope you wil continue to make great tutorials without music, in the meantime I'm looking for other tutorials.

[SterileStreaming]

Do you just create a random GUID or do you get it from somewhere in HA?

[RookieRay]

What can a script do that an automation cannot?

[rebe]

Advice: Look at professionals, Slow down in speaking.