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Built-in actions

Alongside Home Assistant's own services, Ambience provides a few built-in actions that are smarter than a plain service call. They appear in the Settings → Actions picker like any other service (search for "Ambience").

Turn on / Turn off: A single on/off action that targets any mix of supported entities (lights, switches, fans, input booleans, and more) and skips any entity that is already in the target state, so scenes don't fire redundant commands. An entity whose current state can't be read is commanded anyway (it isn't skipped).

Safe cover actions:

  • Open cover (safe) / Close cover (safe) — open or close the targeted covers, but skip any that are already fully open / fully closed.
  • Set cover position (safe) / Set cover tilt (safe) — move the targeted covers to a position (or tilt), skipping any already there.

The "safe" variants read each cover's current position before acting, so a cover that is already where you want it never receives a command — avoiding the relay click some covers make when told to open while already open. A cover that is mid-travel, or whose state can't be read, is always commanded.

The built-in actions are added on first install, but they are not otherwise special. You can edit them, delete them, and re-add them again later.

Next: Using an action in a scene.